when you hear the words “fairytale retelling” do your insides clench and you feel like you might be sick because of all the OVER DONE retellings we’ve had shovelled down our throats the last 5-10 years? me too… which is why i read just one of those, but this one came with a twist!

while retellings from cartoon to live action are common right now, what isn’t is a retelling that takes a Christian bent on the story and on some occasions (apparently) moves to entirely different country and setting.. that’s what The Orphan’s Wish did with the story of Aladdin and i’m here to tell you all about it.

Initial review:

3.5 stars
A twist on Aladdin and Joseph from the bible.
What would have happened if Aladdin had been taken from those Arabian nights and deposited into a European place? This book is a potential answer.
Almost nothing the same as the actual Aladdin story, except his name and Abu’s name (though not a cute and mischievous monkey, but a little boy instead in this story).
I liked it. Christian themes were nice throughout. Not what I expected when I hear the words “Aladdin retelling” though.

As you can see from the above review, this story seemed to link some of the Joseph story from the Bible which showed amazing favour amidst suffering when you put your faith in God instead of the circumstances. it wasn’t beat for beat, just like the aladdin part wasn’t beat for beat either, but it held a lot of similarities (and wasn’t shy about mentioning them all the time).

while this wasn’t the first in the Christian fairytale retelling series that Melanie has done (and i have about five more waiting in the wings to read still because i found this idea fascinating) it was my first experience with this series. i wasn’t fully satisfied, but not fully disappointed either. the story was good, but aladdin it was not. the only familiar things we got was the backstory and name… not much else. however, the love story we did get was pretty good, and i won’t complain about that.

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace