A Whole New World (Twisted Tales) by Liz Braswell

 

What if Jafar was the first one to summon the Genie?

When Jafar steals the Genie’s lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish.

To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed Princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war.

What happens next? A Street Rat becomes a leader. A princess becomes a revolutionary. And readers will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again.

Title: A Whole New World (Twisted Tales)

Author: Liz Braswell

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Publication Date: 9/1/2015

Review:

Thank you NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing me with a copy of this egalley to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own. 

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know the story of Aladdin. Especially the Disney version with its knock your socks off funny Genie. I will not be shy in saying I loved this movie so had high expectations of a retelling where the villain gets to have his story told. I'm a sucker for finding out why the villain acts as they do. Unfortunately, I just did not love this story. At least the part of it I got through.

The first 25% or so of the book is an exact retelling of Aladdin. Almost word for word what you get in the movie. And, while I'm all for rehashing some of what I know as a reminder, it's just not what I was expecting. I was expecting a different tale from the start. But I didn't get that.

I found the characters childish, which, given it's a Disney inspired retelling, I kind of get. But the characters are definitely supposed to be YA in this story and I was expecting more of that aspect. I was expecting more maturity. But the book reads as a middle grade. And how the characters are portrayed didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy, or have any connection to them at all. They had no passion; they had no umph. Their dialogue literally felt flat, like a piece of cardboard. And let's not talk about the insta-love, which I get for a movie, but for a book there can be so much more.

The plot line lacked in keeping me interested. There was no hook from the start. Just the story I know very well.

This was definitely not the epic fantasy retelling of a beloved story I know well at all. Unfortunately, it was a DNF at 40% for me.

After the sort of introverted childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally she caved into fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by The Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. She also has short stories in Geektastic and Who Done It and a new series of reimagined fairy tales coming out, starting with A Whole New World—a retelling of Aladdin.
She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day. You can email her at me@lizbraswell.com.