A Whole New World

I needed a new book to listen to. I find it easier to listen to stories I'm generally familiar with. A retelling of Aladdin? ok I'm game.

listening to book

groans

If I had a paper copy, I'd skim to find the point. There's not much I can say that others haven't already said. It's 1/4 exact movie description, 3/4 bad fanfiction. The characters are one dimensional, and it's clearly written by someone who isn't middle eastern.

This is such a good idea, so poorly done. Like, a retelling of Aladdin where Jafar gets the genie–cool, let's see where that goes! But like, the first 1/4 of the book is just a novelization of the movie, as far as I can tell, with the exact same dialogue and everything.

But then when Jafar gets the lamp, it gets SO DARK? But it's still Disney, so in some ways it's like, not dark ENOUGH? Like, Jafar KILLS IAGO FOR BLOOD MAGIC. What! And then it's interesting to think about the implications of magic/inflation/mind-control etc, and of Jasmine forced to confront the poverty of the Street Rats, but also... like... in the end, when (spoiler) they defeat Jafar and Jasmine becomes the Sultana, she's basically like “Well now I know poverty exists, so I'm gonna fix it.” But, the genie lost all his magic so it's unclear how she proposes to do this??

Like in an animated movie I don't really question the anachronisms but here where it's sort of trying to get me to take it more seriously, but I want to take it less seriously?

Also Aladdin seems so preachy, like he thinks he's better than the rest of the thieves?? But he is also a thief???

Also it's weirdly like... I don't know, it has a real weird take on ~Middle Eastern~ culture, which, given, the movie is set in ~generic Middle Eastern country desert land~, but here it's like “Jasmine thought it was unfair that girls couldn't go to school, but whatever she'll totally fix that!” And then they call the Genie a “djinn” as if he like...... has anything to do with actual djinn legends???

ALSO THE FLYING CARPET GETS STRAIGHT-UP MURDERED

IT'S SO WEIRD AND UPSETTING

and I'm not talking in a “my childhood is ruined way” just like

UPSETTING

I've been wanting to read the Twisted Tales series for quite some time, and finally requested the first book. To be honest, I'm not thrilled. Aladdin was never my favorite Disney movie, though, so it might just be unfortunate that it's the first book in the series. I'll probably still try the rest.

The book actually sticks pretty closely to the Disney movie in descriptions, characters, and setting. Everyone looks like their Disney movie counterparts. I had to check the inside cover to find that the book is indeed an official Disney product. There's no way they'd get away with it, otherwise; it'd be blatant copyright infringement, and Disney is rather strict about that.

Basically, the book takes the script of Aladdin and asks one question - what if Aladdin really did give Jafar the lamp instead of keeping it when he got stuck in the cave? We know what Jafar does with the lamp eventually, but what if he had it first, before Aladdin? A lot of the plot is familiar - Jasmine and her tiger, the hourglass with people stuck inside of it, the Sultan playing with his toys. It's really interesting to see the plot elements deconstructed and put back together in new ways.

I'm not sure whether I like this plot or the movie plot more; I never had strong feelings about Aladdin so I'm probably not the best judge.

It's alright. If you're a fan of Aladdin you might like it more than I did. I'm withholding judgment of the entire series until I read a few more, though.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.