Book Review: A Whole New World by Liz Braswell

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell 

Genre: Young Adult (Fairy Tale Re-Telling)
Date Published: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

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. 

I watched the Aladdin cartoon a bazillion times when I was little, and this book started off almost exactly like the cartoon. Jafar gets the genie first in this on, and there are some different characters you meet along the way. There are a few dark twists, but the pacing was pretty slow, and I didn't really feel like this was different enough to be an actual retelling. I don't know. I guess this one just want for me.

After the sort of introverted childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally she caved into fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by The Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. She also has short stories in Geektastic and Who Done It and a new series of reimagined fairy tales coming out, starting with A Whole New World—a retelling of Aladdin.

She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day.

To learn more about Liz Braswell and her books, visit her website. You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter.

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