Book Review: Twisted

I want to reach into your chest and hold your heart in my hands, making sure it only beats for me,” I rasp. “But I don’t want your firsts, Yasmin. I want your forever

This time, our Emily McIntire ‘Never After’ novel is based on Aladdin. Jasmine has become Yasmin, Aladdin has become Aidan, and Jafar has become Julian. And it is Julian who is our deliciously dark, dangerous, oozing-glorious-sexiness villain. We’ll unpack the Westernised names another time. I mean, Queen Scheherazade is looking down upon this earth, confused.

Now, that is not to say you cannot have a modern re-telling of a classic fairytale - you can, and evidently, McIntire agrees, hence her slew of bestselling books. But I think there should be an erre of cultural sensitivity. There is a fine line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. But, there is also cultural… misplacement, shall we say? I do understand that when you retell a fairytale, you can change certain aspects of the story - such as setting and characterisation, but for it to be a fairytale, you do need to keep certain tropes. Not just the cultural ones, but that helps. Let’s name a few; you have the heroine - a damsel in distress type, sure, I guess that would be Yasmin. I get it she is spoiled, has everything handed to her and is a princess without the title. Julian couldn’t be the hero, and he is the villain, i.e. he lets his pet snake eat people who have ‘wronged’ him. There is no “rule of three”, which you get in the original Aladdin. Nor is there anything magical, characteristics of three wishes, per se. Yes, the ‘lamp’ makes an appearance, but only as a historical artefact, there is no illusion of anything mystical.

I can understand the motivation to bring fairytales into the 21st century and put them into a modern context. But remember, Lebanon and certainly the United States are not part of the historical region of Arabia. True, that part of the world is a little dicey and not particularly great regarding women’s rights, so, understandably, McIntinre moves the plot to the modern tale somewhere in the West. However, not all parts of the Middle East are dangerous, in fact, many parts are pretty prosperous anyone who has watched an episode of ‘Dubai Bling’ will know. But, I guess every writer's rule is to ‘write what you know’.

If we move our discussion away from cultural sensitivities, or the lack thereof. Let's chat about the plot. Now, I do love a bad boy. In fact, I’m pretty sure all the girls, at some point in our mad, erratic lives, have loved a bad boy. I mean, they just seem to ooze sexiness and charm. If you haven’t been there, then you haven’t lived. Julian is a great bad boy - not as unhinged as some of the previous villains, but just as morally ambiguous. But there is a formula here for these books. Did I start to think, ‘The formula is getting a little tired’? Yes. Was it more focused on the spice than the plot? Also yes. I enjoyed the spice, sure - I know when I crack open these types of books, I’m not getting a Pulitzer-winning story. But there are romance writers who do so much better at balancing a great plot and spice. This book was not one of them. Hooked is still the best one of this series and will remain my favourite. Twisted? I can take or leave.