A Whole New World {by Liz Braswell}

Title: A Whole New World

Author: Liz Braswell

Series: Twisted Tales #1

Genre: YA Fantasy, Retelling

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Source: NetGalley

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.

When I saw this announced, I was so, so excited for it. A retelling of one of my favorite Disney stories? Yes, please. Unfortunately, this one did not really live up to my expectations.

As I've seen some people say, the beginning (and most, really) of this story was exactly like the cartoon. I had the exact story playing out in my head, and cartoon characters for images. There wasn't really any new world-building. I didn't really get a feel for the city or the world. Some things weren't explained fully. The "twist" was that Jafar summoned the genie before Aladdin, so the only difference from the movie that Aladdin never became "Prince Ali" and all that jazz. It goes straight to Jafar making his evil wishes.

The characters also fell flat. I was excited to see a different depth to one of my favorite Disney characters ever, but that wasn't there. I've always had a dislike for Jasmine, and this version was probably worse. The characters were not fleshed out. They were bland and there was never any depth, to any of the main characters or secondary ones.

Still, this was interesting enough to keep my attention long enough to finish it. I think I kept hoping that it would pick up and "wow" me. I did like the ending, and think it was done well. This book had a lot of potential, but sadly, I do not feel like it lived up to it.

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Liz Braswell:

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