So, Disney have a new venture of YA books that are a twist on the original Disney story and change something fundamental about the plot. In A Whole New World the twist is that Jafar gets to the lamp before Aladdin, sparking a revolution led by a deposed Jasmine. This was a fun little book that started a series I want to read a lot more of.
I liked the insight into the lives of Street Rats that’s never really explored by the film and the undercurrent of class conflicts and dictatorships. It was less a love story and more action and relationships between people in hardship, which is the kind of YA I like.
It wasn’t the best written book in the world and its sparked a new desire in me for editing that tweaks the spelling for a British market (every time Aladdin ‘leaped’ anywhere it dragged me right out of the story) but to be honest I didn’t pick this one up expecting a masterpiece. It was fun, not predictable and a darker update on one of my favourite Disney stories.
A Novel Haul 