Sally’s Lament: A Twisted Tale Review

Merry (belated) Christmas everyone! I know that my regularly scheduled posts have been… sparse lately but life has been kind of busy and had other plans for me and this blog. Luckily, I’ve been fortunate enough to carve out a chunk of time to read and review a book that I’ve wanted to do for a while by the end of the year. I was hoping to get this out originally before Christmas, as a sort of tongue in cheek celebration of the holiday, but like I said, I just got caught up in other plans and projects looking forward to next year.  My hope is to be able to write more reviews like these in 2026 as the kind of “soft launch” to this new series based around the Twisted Tales Disney book series. Hope you enjoy the review and make sure to check out the books if you’re interested! – GP

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“What if Sally discovered Christmas Town?”

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first review of the Twisted Tales series! I'm really excited to finally be able to read more and write about this series because I think each book poses a very interesting formula to a lot of well-known and beloved Disney movies. If you aren't familiar with the books, each story contains a “what if” question that can sometimes drastically alter the plot and events of the original movie they're taken from. In this case, in honor of Christmas, I’ll be discussing and reviewing the 19^th book in the series, “Sally’s Lament” by Mari Mancusi based off the 1993 film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I will give my overall thoughts and feelings throughout the first half of this review, as well as a brief discussion of tone, writing style, and pacing before moving into talking more about the “twist” and my critique of the book, as well as what I thought could be improved later. For now, let’s begin with my overall thoughts.

Overall Thoughts

For a book rewriting the events of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I thought that the book did a very good job of still encapsulating the weird and wacky Tim Burton style and world of the original. One of the biggest selling points of the movie is the way that the film can contrast both the holidays of Halloween and Christmas without isolating or demeaning one over the other. There’s always joy and reverence to both throughout their visual styles and aesthetics, from music and lighting, down to character design and general feel. Although conveying something in a book comes with its challenges, especially if it’s based off of a pre-existing movie, Mancusi still manages to show the weird oddities and quirks that make the original film charming and memorable. As I was reading, I still felt that the already existing characters, most notably the titular Sally and the film’s original protagonist Jack Skellington, were in line with how they acted in the original. I especially appreciate how much the book was able to further expand on their dynamic by having the two of them interact more outside of Halloween Town. Even though the film still showed how their relationship came together by the very end in spite of their lack of screen time together (check out this Sarcastic Chorus video if you want to learn more), I think the idea of letting them share more moments together naturally built up more of their chemistry and attraction to each other instead of something just being enforced by vibes alone. Over the course of the story, the two learn to genuinely care and respect one another, and I think it just made me enjoy the book more because of the cute ways that Jack and Sally were able to actually spend time together instead of being hinted at for one hour and fifteen minutes before kissing and rolling credits. Outside of those two main points, the book mostly followed the core idea of the film, but I think that was more to its benefit rather than it's detriment, especially when it came to the tone, writing style and pacing.

Tone, Style and Pacing

            I think that it would be clear to the fans of A Nightmare Before Christmas that Mari Mancusi obviously did the research or naturally knows a lot about the characters, style and world of Nightmare Before Christmas because the way that she is able to convey her style of writing into the world of Tim Burton was infectious to read. I've only read a few of the other Twisted Tale books before this one (“Go the Distance” based on Hercules and “As Old As Time” based on Beauty and the Beast), but I've noticed that they either fall into one of two categories: they either make the book more based in reality or follow the world of the stories, but change up the characters drastically. Naturally, I think it's just a standard courtesy to acknowledge these books as pseudo-fanfiction, but I think that can fall into a trap of not appealing too much to fans that love the original films. That's kind of the elephant in the room when realizing that you're reading something from Disney, a studio that prides themselves on their intellectual properties and recognizable characters. However, I think that Mancusi does a respect to these characters and this world by not only leaning into the silliness of it but also trying to bring a level of earnestness that the original film showed. As just one example, Sally still wrestles with her feelings of self-worth and the way that others see her and how she’s perceived, while coming into her own and realizing that she can depend on Jack, as well as her new doll friend Abigail. There are still some slight problems, like how at sometimes it feels like the book relies on Sally’s visions (something that was shown in the film) to progress the plot in a strange and unconventional way. For me personally though, it just kind of fits within the context of which the world is presented. Do we need to know why Sally has future visions in the same way that we need to know why there’s a swamp made out of eggnog outside of Christmas Town? I’d argue not, but that’s what makes the book fun and enjoyable as to how it’s going to flesh out the world in fantastical new ways and as a reader, you’re just kind of expected to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The “Twist”

            Arguably, the most contentious part about this book is how the twist is handled with Sally discovering Christmas Town instead of Jack. I’d wager that although it does change the ways in which the story is presented from the film in some drastically different ways, there are a lot of new elements, like the aforementioned character of Abigail and how much the story is focused on her development that I didn’t mind as much. The story still does focus on Sally and most of her journey throughout the first third of the book, but I thought that once she joins up with Jack, the story kind of slots into how it was in the original (with some other fun original developments that I won’t spoil). I could see how that could be a problem with some people, as Jack doesn't get a lot of spotlight like he does in the film, but I think that the book would be wayyy worse if he wasn't here at all to begin with. Jack and Sally are still both likeable characters, whether they are with each other or not, but I think the premise of Sally going to Christmas Town isn’t as entertaining in practice as Jack’s wide-eyed awe and curiosity, but complete misunderstanding of Christmas like the original. The two work wonderfully as a pair, but I’m glad that the twist was still able to show Sally on her own to establish her own arc before Jack’s overwhelming charisma and presence was just going to inevitably be there as part of the brand. Speaking of the brand, that brings me to my final point about the critique of the book and what I thought could be improved.

Critique and Improvements (SPOILER WARNING)

            Before I go on and talk about my biggest critique of the book, I want to just give one final SPOILER WARNING for Sally’s Lament because the point that I want to talk about involves the villain of the story. If you don’t want to be spoiled, I’ll leave my rating of a 9.5/10 here so you can still get the gist of this review. Alright? Good.

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MY MAIN PROBLEM WITH THIS BOOK IS THAT OOGIE BOOGIE IS NOT THE VILLAIN!!!  I know that may sound weird, because it would make sense, right? If the book is trying to do something completely different from the original, why not just let it do its own thing? I get that, but once again, it comes back to the brand recognition of Disney. If you have a character who is one of the most recognizable images of your brand for this particular movie, so much so that for every Halloween, you plaster his face and broadcast his voice all over your parks, why does he only get less than a sentence of a passing glance that he's still in the world somewhere, RIGHT AT THE END OF THE BOOK?!?! That only leads to more questions right as the book ends, like what was he doing the entire time that this story was happening? Was he just hanging out? Plotting? Scheming? Gathering up more bugs? The book just offhandedly mentions that Lock, Shock and Barrel, the characters that are mostly associated with him, are just in the final scene without his name being mentioned at all. When I read those final pages of the main story outside of the epilogue, it only dawned on me that the main villain from the original WAS TOTALLY ABSENT FROM THIS BOOK, and I think personally that is a HUGE missed opportunity.

            If I were to add anything to this book that would improve how already good it is, I would just make a small scene right before or right after the epilogue. It doesn't need to be big, but I think for one of Disney's most iconic villains, Oogie should have a little bit more presence than just a single line of blink and you’ll miss it dialogue (if you’re already familiar with Nightmare Before Christmas). I'm potentially even going to try and write my own scene for the end of this book after talking with a friend because I just couldn't understand how much the book could blindside me like that. The villains as they are already written for this story serve their purpose as villains and antagonists for Christmas Town, and I can understand that Oogie could be just used for Halloween Town in this context of only the original, but for this world, there’s already so much presence and charisma for a villain that’s already loved and established that any other villain, for me personally, just falls short of the film.

Final Thoughts

            I think for an entry so late in the Twisted Tales series, this book does a really good job of still feeling like the original source material that its adapting for the story it’s trying to tell. For me, the best part of the book was obviously the characters and the world. There's a reason that Nightmare Before Christmas was and still is beloved by critics and fans, and to see even more glimpses of this world and these characters just always brings a sense of whimsy and fun that I think is endlessly creative. Any author could take these pieces and make them into any type of story that they want, and I think it at least would be an entertaining way to build the world as you want it. You could even see this in another story similar to “Sally’s Lament” called “Long Live the Pumpkin Queen” (I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard about it through this video discussing it. It seems pretty interesting). Nevertheless, I'm excited to see what the other Twisted Tale books could bring if they have this much love, care and respect for their source material. I’m sure like with this book, it would just be better to buckle up and enjoy the ride. Despite all of that, I’m certain that if you’re a fan of the original film or a new fan wanting to see just how wonderful and creative this world could be, this book is sure to delight you with some freaky and festive holiday cheer.

9.5/10