A Whole New World by Liz Braswell – REVIEW

This book was sent to me by Disney Press via NetGalley to read and review. Thank you Disney Press and NetGalley!

I read this one on my Kindle.

Publisher: Disney Press

Publication date: September 1st, 2015

Pages: 384 (hardback)

Synopsis by the publisher:

Welcome to a new YA series that reimagines classic Disney stories in surprising new ways. Each book asks the question: What if one key moment from a familiar Disney film was changed?

This dark and daring version of Aladdin twists the original story with the question: 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.

The Review

“Childhood memories combined with unexpected twists. A whole new look on a story we all know so well.”

***

The Writing

Braswell did a good job when writing about this familiar story and brought me back to my childhood when I used to watch Aladdin over and over again. The way she writes about Agrabah makes it easy for the reader to imagine the city.

The events in the book that are similar to the Disney Classic were written well and stayed true to the story and even added some more depth to it.

The Characters

My favorite character in this novel was definitely Jasmine. She was such a strong female character, and even more so than what I remembered her as in the movie. She had the most amazing character development throughout this story.

I really enjoyed getting to know Aladdin on a deeper level and seeing more of his past that we didn’t get a chance to in the movie. There was so much more to him worth knowing.

Jafar, oh Jafar! I remember when my sister took me to see Aladdin at the Cinema when it first came out and I cried because Jafar was so scary. Well I’m glad that he wasn’t as brutal in the movie as he is in this novel. Then I probably would have had a whole lot of nightmares. Braswell did a good job with making him into a gruesome villain that was interesting to read about.

We were also introduced to whole bunch of new characters that I really enjoyed reading about.

The one character that I missed throughout this was Iago. He was such an important character in the movie, but not in the book. I would have loved it if he appeared more throughout the story.

The Plot

When I read through a lot of the reviews of this novel I saw that many complained about the first 70 or so pages because they were pretty much identical to the movie. I on the other hand really liked that. It was a nice way to refresh my memory and to build up to where it all takes a turn to a whole new story.

When the twist of Jafar getting the lamp instead of Aladdin came the pace really picked up and become a very intense and interesting story.

I really enjoyed the story and how it progressed, and the ending was very satisfactory.

Additional Thoughts

I went into this a bit sceptical as one often does when it is a retelling of a story that you already love, but this one was does so well that I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Childhood memories combined with unexpected twists. A whole new look on a story we all know so well.

And the cover is stunning!