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A review by smart_girls_love_trashy_books
The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury
4.0
-POTENTIAL SPOILERS-
Wow, talk about a book completely taking you by surprise! Reading the reviews for this book, I saw all the praise and instantly got concerned. This really doesn't sound like the type of book I like-I'm not a huge fan of romance, believe it or not, and this is mainly focused on romance.
But wow, this book was really well done! The writing style was extremely lush, detailed and descriptive-just the way I like it. My favorite characters were of course the badass princess-turned-queen and her band of loyal female warriors. They were so cool! I wish we had more characters like them in YA literature.
While I'm not a huge fan of the Aladdin story, I will read any retelling I come across since it's just what I do, and this is a very good mature retelling. All the pieces are there for you to piece together the original, yet it does something completely new and different with it.
As for the climax, I actually admired its fast pace! It fit in well with the rest of the story, which was extremely fast-paced in certain portions.
Honestly the only reason why the rating isn't higher is because while I like the setting, it's not entirely original, I'm not a huge fan of the Aladdin story, and imagine the possibilities if it were a female genie with a female Aladdin! Although there was that friendship with the female genie and an ancient queen they build up quite a lot, so.
Overall, this was a surprising literal gem of a book I'm glad I read, and hopefully I can read another Aladdin retelling just as good as this one sometime in the future.
Wow, talk about a book completely taking you by surprise! Reading the reviews for this book, I saw all the praise and instantly got concerned. This really doesn't sound like the type of book I like-I'm not a huge fan of romance, believe it or not, and this is mainly focused on romance.
But wow, this book was really well done! The writing style was extremely lush, detailed and descriptive-just the way I like it. My favorite characters were of course the badass princess-turned-queen and her band of loyal female warriors. They were so cool! I wish we had more characters like them in YA literature.
While I'm not a huge fan of the Aladdin story, I will read any retelling I come across since it's just what I do, and this is a very good mature retelling. All the pieces are there for you to piece together the original, yet it does something completely new and different with it.
As for the climax, I actually admired its fast pace! It fit in well with the rest of the story, which was extremely fast-paced in certain portions.
Honestly the only reason why the rating isn't higher is because while I like the setting, it's not entirely original, I'm not a huge fan of the Aladdin story, and imagine the possibilities if it were a female genie with a female Aladdin! Although there was that friendship with the female genie and an ancient queen they build up quite a lot, so.
Overall, this was a surprising literal gem of a book I'm glad I read, and hopefully I can read another Aladdin retelling just as good as this one sometime in the future.