REVIEW: A Whole New World by Liz Braswell

If I love anything as much as I love books, Disney would be that thing. I may be graduating from college and heading off into the "real" world, but play any Disney song and I revert into a five-year-old singing every word and quoting every line. 

So you can imagine how I reacted when I saw someone had written a retelling of Disney's Aladdin. There was a lot of squealing and fangirling and magic-carpet-riding and what not. And upon finishing said book, I had "A Whole New World" and the end credits music running through my head (yes, I even recognize the credits music, because it's amazing so there). 

BUT that is not fitting for this "Twisted Tale". Let me tell you a thing. Wow.

The Short Story:

This book is unexpected, shocking, romantic, epic, magical, and hilarious. Be prepared for exact quotes from the movie. The story will take you on a journey you absolutely do not see coming and characters will tackle moral dilemmas much larger than in the movie. If you liked the movie, I think you'll like the book, too. I certainly did!

The Long Story:

The tagline for this book is "what if Aladdin never got the lamp?" Just think for a second. What happens if that question is true? BAD THINGS, that's what. This book, guys. This. Book. It was not what I was expecting but it was also everything I wanted. This story follows the movie extremely closely up to a certain point...at which it simply skips to "and the bad guy wins" and everything goes bananas. Aladdin and Jasmine meet in the marketplace, have the same goofy flirty banter, and things go along as we Disney movie viewers expect. Then the story takes a turn and the characters are forced to turn with it. This does mean that the characters grow in a different way than in the movie. 
This book is a huge adventure. Aladdin is our goofy and golden-hearted main character and Jasmine is our fierce and vivacious princess. The synopsis tells us that Jafar gets the lamp. Jafar is not meant to rule and his flaws are well-executed and really weave into his motives. There are many other characters who have such huge personalities that I can hardly call them side characters. Agrabah falls to pieces under Jafar, as anyone would expect, and it is up to the underdogs, the Street Rats, to fix it. But goodness knows, there are some issues with just "fixing it".
I wish I had known ahead of time how much certain parts would parallel the movie because it made it hard to separate the two while reading. Certain relationships and back stories were a little hard to follow or seemed irrelevant and I wish we had gotten more about Jafar because he is such a ridiculous villain. Since I am a wuss, there were some scenes that were too graphic for my taste and I wish I had been prepared for that. They don't call it a "twisted" tale for nothing, apparently.
If you like heist stories or political stories or Disney or fairytales in general, try this book on for size. I think you'll enjoy it. I really liked this book and retelling fans will, too.

4/5 stars.

Let me know if you've read this book and what you thought of it! 

Happy reading!