The Forbidden Wish

I don't know if you guys noticed, but retellings are HUGE in YA. Here, let's make a list:

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Hunted by Megan Spooner
A Twisted Tale series by Liz Braswell
A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
The Splintered series by A.G. Howard
The Dorothy Must Die series by Danielle Paige

And the list goes on...

The Forbidden Wish is an Aladdin retelling, and there aren't very many of those. There are a few Thousand and One Nights retellings, but not many that focus on just Aladdin.

One thing I love about Jessica Khoury is that her books are stand alones. That is very rare in YA. I read Origin years ago and I loved it, too. That was before I was quite the YA buff I am now. I don't know how I'd feel about it now if I read it again. But I will say The Forbidden wish did not disappoint me. Jessica Khoury is vastly underrated, I think. We don't get a lot of requests for her books in the bookstore, and it's a shame. She's a fantastic storyteller.

It's a story about Zahra, a thousands year  old (female!) genie, and Aladdin, a thief. But it's also about fixing past mistakes, finding redemption, saving a kingdom and, oh yeah, love. Aladdin is hired to steal a ring from the palace, but instead of taking it to the party that hired him, he keeps it. As soon as he steals it, it starts speaking to him, pulling him toward something. That's how he finds Zahra's lamp, which has been hidden for 500 years. Zahra expects Aladdin to be just like any other master: to make his three petty wishes and move on while she gets passed from greedy hand to greedy hand. Instead, he uses his wishes to take revenge on the man who killed his parents: the  Grand Vizier character who is the Sultan's brother. To do this, he has to become--you guessed it--a prince. He has to try to win the princess's hand in marriage. Aladdin and Zahra have to spend a lot of time together to make this happen and their forbidden attraction grows.

There is so much depth and subplot to this story that it's difficult to fully summarize it, especially without giving anything away. Ultimately, the book was amazing. I think Khoury found a great balance between action, character development, and the backstories, which must habe been incredibly difficult. The rimance between Aladdin and Zahra is not even the most important part of the story, which was nice. There was definitely growing romantic tension, but it wasn't over-emphasized. She didn't sacrifice the story to the romance.

All of the secondary characters are very well-developed. You get glimpses of their backstories that help you inderstand their motivations, who they're trying to impress, what their goals are, and so on. The setting is so vivid: it's a city with a rune-like shield around it to keep out magical creatures. A war between humans and jinn has been waging for centuries, and genies are an object of hatred (which makes Aladdin having a genie pretty dangerous). There are secrets and loyalties are tested. It has all the best, natural type of drama you want in a good story. Also, the cover is really pretty!  Trust me 😉