Reviewed by Ashley on
The first 25% was EXACTLY like the movie—frame by frame, line by line. It's like someone sat there watching the movie describing EVERY scene to me and regurgitating EVERY line of dialogue.
I get that this was an Aladdin retelling, but couldn't there have been some more variance? Yeesh.
At 25% things finally branch off into a totally new direction (that "what if" factor). But it didn't get any better...
* The characters were LITERALLY cardboard. Zero passion, zero development, zero everything. They just existed and that's it. They were not fleshed out at all.
* Javar was the villain, obviously, but he felt more like a background character. He seemed so hollow and not scary :/
* Everything about the book felt more middle grade than YA. There was no depth, no intensity, no epicness. It was more like a somewhat ridiculous case of, "Our band of teenagers will DEFEAT EVIL SAVE THE WORLD!" I love YA but I've outgrown middle grade and this felt very much like something that I'd outgrown.
* The romance was insta-lovey. Or at least insta-crushy. It's like that in Aladdin, I know, but for some reason it feels totally okay in the movie. But in a book, I expect more. With more pages and more room for development, I want to see a better, slower, more thought out romance.
I was curious to see how the story would turn out, but to be honest, I just wasn't enjoying it at all. I was dragging my feet and finally got tired of it.
Reading updates
- 3 May, 2015: Started reading
- 3 May, 2015: Finished reading
- 3 May, 2015: Reviewed