I was given a copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.
"A Whole New World" is a retelling of Disney's version of Aladdin. I didn't think that it was not as bad as all of the reviews that I have been seeing led me to believe it would be. Most of the reviews that I've read regarding this book were written by people who never finished the book. That being said, it was not as good as I thought it could have been.
The story starts out the same, we find Aladdin in the market, stealing food so that he doesn't starve. There are some nice details here, we meet his mother and see a playful interaction with a palace guard. The first bit stays pretty true to the movie, up until the exit from the Cave of Wonders. Rather than Abu stealing the lamp back from Jafar, the Grand Vizier ends up with it. From there, we essentially jump to the end of the movie, where Jafar goes power crazy. And this is no Disney Jafar. He kills and tortures characters that we love, or at least had a liking of. It was hard for me to continue reading when this started happening. I began to question what type of person would write a reimagining of a Disney classic, where the good guys are killed off. Unlike my fellow reviews, I stuck with it.
The story wasn't necessarily bad, I just never seemed to have the resolve to want to pick up the book after I had put it down. Days would pass between my reading it. And I was ok with that. By the time I was near the end, I think that I was reading it just to finish the book, more than to find out what was going to happen in the story.
As I said, it wasn't a bad story, just not at all what I thought it could have been.
"A Whole New World" is a retelling of Disney's version of Aladdin. I didn't think that it was not as bad as all of the reviews that I have been seeing led me to believe it would be. Most of the reviews that I've read regarding this book were written by people who never finished the book. That being said, it was not as good as I thought it could have been.
The story starts out the same, we find Aladdin in the market, stealing food so that he doesn't starve. There are some nice details here, we meet his mother and see a playful interaction with a palace guard. The first bit stays pretty true to the movie, up until the exit from the Cave of Wonders. Rather than Abu stealing the lamp back from Jafar, the Grand Vizier ends up with it. From there, we essentially jump to the end of the movie, where Jafar goes power crazy. And this is no Disney Jafar. He kills and tortures characters that we love, or at least had a liking of. It was hard for me to continue reading when this started happening. I began to question what type of person would write a reimagining of a Disney classic, where the good guys are killed off. Unlike my fellow reviews, I stuck with it.
The story wasn't necessarily bad, I just never seemed to have the resolve to want to pick up the book after I had put it down. Days would pass between my reading it. And I was ok with that. By the time I was near the end, I think that I was reading it just to finish the book, more than to find out what was going to happen in the story.
As I said, it wasn't a bad story, just not at all what I thought it could have been.
