The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I am going to mix up the order here a bit… I will start with the Ugly!

The Ugly – For the first 90 or so pages, I thought I was reading the Disney movie script. It was identical! And, because I have seen the movie a time or two, the voices became the voices from the movie which just enhanced the effect. It was super difficult to read for two reasons. One, I know the story and have seen the movie a bunch of times so there wasn’t anything new or interesting about it. I kept wondering where the twist was! Two, I am actually not a huge Aladdin fan, so to regurgitate the Disney story was sort of meh for me.

The Bad – Besides the regurgitated Disney for the first 90 pages, there were a few moments that sort of made me pause. Jasmine makes a comment about getting married just to pump out babies. I would let my kid read that, there are others who might not. Jafar manages to break the laws of magic and brings people back from the dead. Again, this is something that people might not want to let a child read about, or may not want to read themselves depending on their preferences/religious views. There are also a few kissy type scenes, but super low-key and not anything that I would hesitate to give to my kiddos.

The writing is solid, but not life changing. This is a book picked up for fun and uses limited brain power to read through. There will be no pondering the universe afterwards.

The Good – Ok, after the first 90 or so pages, it does change. The story itself fleshes out and gets better. It is an intriguing idea and the author doesn’t go all girl power, Aladdin still plays an important role in the liberation of Agrahbah. Again, its a breezy read and if you are a super Disney fan, it can be fun.