What if Aladdin had
never found the lamp? This first book in the A Twisted Tale line will
explore a dark and daring version of Disney's Aladdin. 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.
Rating: *****
I love Disney. I
love fairytale retellings. So finding a retelling of one of Disney's
movies had me intrigued.
This story goes over
a few events from the movie before it diverges into the twisted tale
aspect. Revisiting parts of the movie was nice, because it does give
you a chance to get into the heads of Aladdin and Jasmine before
everything goes bad for them. Because things obviously go bad when
Jafar has the Genie under his control.
The characters were
all enjoyable. Aladdin and Jasmine aren't too far off from their
original Disney version, but they still go through some changes –
Jasmine more so than Aladdin. Genie is pretty similar, but slightly
more subdued in my opinion. Actually we learn a little bit more about
his history in this book, which I found to be pretty interesting.
Genie's past isn't something I'd thought much about before. Jafar is
Jafar. There's really not much else to say there expect that he
teeters on the edge of losing his mind on occasion and there are a
few tidbits about his past as well. Abu, Rajah, and Carpet are all
around too, though with smaller roles for the most part. There are
also a few new characters from Aladdin's past, and they were a nice
addition.
There was a notable
absence in this book however. Jafar's sidekick, Iago, is mentioned a
few times, but never actually makes an appearance. His absence is
explained, but I found myself actually missing him. Part of me kind
of wonders if the author kept him out of the story in an attempt at
being more realistic. It sounds weird considering we have Genie,
Carpet, and magic in this story, but the author does seem to be
keeping things more grounded to an extent. Of the animal characters
in the movie, Iago was pretty different than Abu and Rajah in the
fact that he can verbally communicate more than a normal parrot. It
might would be easier to keep him out of the story than trying to
find a way to realistically explain it, but that's just speculation
on my part.
Of negatives, I
really only had two complaints. The first is the lack of interactions
between Aladdin and Genie. In this story, Jasmine is the one who
really befriends Genie and Aladdin has one or two meetings with them,
only one of which where they actually talk. Aladdin thinks that the
two of them could have been friends in another life, which we all
know is true. Aladdin and Genie's friendship is one of my favorite
things from the movie, and I found myself really disappointed that we
couldn't have it in this book. My other complaint is the fate of a
few characters. I won't say more than that, because it heads into
spoiler territory.
Overall, I found
this to be an enjoyable retelling of Disney's version of Aladdin. If
you've ever wondered what it would have been like if Jafar had been
the one to use the lamp first instead of Aladdin, I'd recommend this
book.
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