Jasmine and Aladdin form a rebel alliance of the most downtrodden citizens of Agrabah in order to wrest back their freedom from tyrant Jafar. From here, the novel progresses into fairly fantasy (or even dystopian) fare.

Things go haywire after Jafar gets his hands on the genie lamp. The initial chapters are the most reminiscent of the movie, which means they’re a great refresher for readers who haven’t seen the film in a while but may come across as boring to those who have. Contrasted with the beauty of the castle and the desert, however, is the quarter of the Street Rat where protagonist Aladdin lives. The opening scenes of the novel describe in beautiful prose the city of Agrabah. Unfortunately, the novel too often strays to extremes, either copying the movie too faithfully to be interesting or straying so far that it is difficult to tell it is supposed to be a version of Aladdin, and it never really finds the sweet spot necessary for a great retelling. However, as a reimagining of Aladdin, A Whole New World has extra criteria to meet in order to please Disney fans, namely, staying faithful to the original content while still offering readers a unique twist. If A Whole New World were an original work, I would probably just call it a solid fantasy novel that satisfyingly fulfills a lot of tropes, even if it does not necessarily add anything new to the genre and move on. Even though the book made a rather valiant effort to be dark, I never felt the passion and Jafar was too pathetically incompetent to come across as a real threat. The characters are flat, including Jafar who is supposed to be supremely evil. However, it doesn't function particularly well as a retelling. Initial Thoughts: I wanted to give this three stars because the prose is nice and I could see this being an solid sort of fantasy novel in other circumstances.

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell