Reviews tagging 'Murder'

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell

11 reviews

ninaleeray's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This take on Disney’s Aladdin starts off familiar and takes a dark turn. Jafar with his  evil magic goes to unimaginable lengths to become all powerful stops at nothing using Iago, genie and death to his advantage. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death of parent, and Violence

rambles's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

3.5

The beginning of the book is just a rehash of the movie which makes sense you have to get to the Cave of Wonders part. It goes deeper into the character’s minds  so it’s alright.  The middle is where this story shines. It’s well researched and I felt immersed in the world. Jasmine and Aladdin have so much more character in this. It’s dark and thrilling. The ending in my opinion was disappointing. It was building up to something cool but the ending in the movie is much more clever and satisfying. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Blood and Murder

So I don’t know how to put this but the

scene where Jafar takes apart the carpet would be so much more graphic in this novel would no longer be Waihee if it was a human, and that was the part of the book that disturbed me the most.

kibbles15's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Bullying and War

Minor: Misogyny

asahome's review against another edition

1.5

 A man loses his mind and destroys my childhood.

I think this ruined my childhood... I mean, I know that sounds dramatic, but while reading the required book, I wanted to put it down so many times. I forced myself to finish, but it was so dark. So sad...  It made me so sad to think about how far people were willing to go to get power. Madness is not something that can be predicted. I finished this book and don't know if I'll continue with this series of books.

And what was done to Carpet... 😭

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, and Police brutality

Minor: Confinement and Animal death

vixenreader's review

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

The re-telling of “Aladdin” treads a fine line between a replica of the original source and fan-fiction, it is a lot better, and surprisingly more inspired, than it could have been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, War, Murder, Death of parent, Violence, Slavery, Torture, and Death

Moderate: Grief, Police brutality, Body horror, Medical content, Body shaming, Confinement, Animal cruelty, and Gore

Minor: Fatphobia, Genocide, Classism, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, and Animal death

Ultranationalist governments, arranged marriage, starvation, thirst, poverty, theft, and drowning in sand are also featured in the text.

jordan_uhden's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, Death of parent, Child death, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

maymoo's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was absolutely fantastic but

the end was afull as they destroyed the premiums of the book and made it extremely hard to finish

I would never read this book again but the beginning was good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Incest, Murder, Police brutality, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Bullying, Grief, Genocide, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexism

stormywolf's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 Partly inspired by a certain internet movie reviewer, and partly because I am a bit of a fangirl, I decided I wanted to dedicate the month of December to all that is Disney! This series of reviews will focus on Disney-inspired media, obviously, and will hopefully expand over the years. This year I wanted to get the ball rolling on their Twisted Tales series, books that promise to re-imagine the Disney stories we know and love as new, darker takes. Will they be successful, or will the originals' magic still hold?

Read my full review at The Wolf's Den

Overall, there was a lot I liked in this story, but the execution was lacking. There are tons of valuable perspectives addressed throughout the story—of women in a patriarchal society, of poverty and morality, of power and justice—but without a central character to witness and react to these revelations and (hopefully) changes, it doesn't leave much of an impact when all's said and done. It is an interesting What If... story, to be sure, but would have greatly benefited from a tighter focus and/or more alterations to main characters. Still, as an introduction to the possibilities of these Twisted Tales, I'm definitely looking forward to what lies ahead, albeit with a bit more apprehension. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Slavery, and Violence

Minor: Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Animal death, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and War

kfrickle's review against another edition

It was too dark for my liking. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

breeoxd's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Much darker than I thought it would be, this first in the twisted tale lives up the the name. Overall tone is a bit Arabian princess gets woke and street rats have morals, but there are some very disturbing sections in here where Jafar goes crazy. Wish we had a bit more backstory on Jafar- he makes a bit of a weak villain with no real purpose. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Torture