Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-1916997-20160726221148/@comment-31564770-20170426175908

So I've finished it, and here's what I have to say. I'll try to avoid any specific spoilers since I gather a lot of people aren't done or are unable to get their hands on it.

First, an overall impression: when I first heard this was going to be a thing, I was like, "well, it sounds like the book itself is going to be awful YA fanfic level but imma read it anyways since I want more canon and Regina is my favorite." However, when I picked it up, the writing was actually better than I anticipated by quite a bit. By no means a masterpiece, but Toliver is decent.

Now to the content: we do get several original characters here. I won't go into a ton of detail for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but the most prominent one is this girl Claire and she becomes Regina's friend. This book does also insert flashbacks, but identifies the dates or how long ago each section is, so it isn't confusing. The best way to describe this book is it's the episode that gives canon back stories to all the stuff too small to get its own episode on the main show. For example, we get the origin story of the poison apple and how the Blind Witch came to possess it. I was also surprised that they did this, but we got a canon answer for Regina's scar on her lip. We all know the actual answer is that Lana was attacked by a dog when she was 10, but now we have an actual in-universe story: she got thrown off a horse. There are a few other things in the story, but all in all I'd say it is pretty good for not telling us things we already know and there's a lot of value in what Regina was like before The Stable Boy. There's enough reference to the universe as we know it to make it feel like this is in fact the same person in the same world. Therefore, I'd say this is worth a read if you want to know more about the world and Regina. It's quite good at expanding details from the show.