Mar's Review Store

The Aladdin of China

Shivran86 , your review by TheStargazer_ is ready.

Cover:

Your cover is beautiful and makes it quite clear where your story takes place: China. It caught my eye right away and suggested an interesting story, one that I would like to read. On the other hand, I’m not that sure about the title. Even though “The Aladdin of China” is to the point and leaves no room for wondering, at the same time it feels bland. Maybe add to the title and make “The Aladdin of China” your subtitle.

Description:

After the cover, the description is what will captivate your readers the most. Finding a balance between a long description with possible spoilers that will ruin our story and a short one that will hook your reader is complicated. Since your book is an Aladdin retelling, such a balance was even harder to find since everyone and their mother know the story.

But, exactly because of that, I believe your description is even more important. For what I’ve read so far, you’ve weaved an interesting story that goes beyond an Aladdin retelling. Make sure your possible reader knows that.

If you need help writing your description, the TheStarSignSociety has a summary shop – The Uranus’ Prologue Writers - where you can head to and request a new description for your book.

Content:

Just so you know I divided this in three points: Character Development, Plot and Grammar, and I’ll go in that order.

First of all, Character Development.

I had the chance to read your story before and after you rewrote the last three chapter which are up – Jasmine, Wish to be a Queen, Wei Inayaa – and I have to say character development improved after these chapters went through a revision. Especially the whole Royal family and their intrigues become clearer to us. This gives every single character that is important to us, the reader, a goal, a need, something they want.

Even though the story has just started, and they have had little room to grow, you have done agood job at showing instead of telling us what they’re like. We know Nuan is crass but has a strong sense of justice. The Prince has shown his true colors more than once, and the scenes with Táng Na told us very much about her.

On the other hand, the Empress was now relayed to the background and there is very little we’ve seen of her so far. I believe her character could have been better explored and I hope it is in the next few chapters.

There is also something that the genie says that I believe is out of character for him. He mentions that Nuan has “the countenance and behaviour of a man”. If any other character had said this, I would have believed this had to do with the era and place, however, the genie can travel through space and time. He has brought things from New York, from the future. That sentence of his sounds out of place for him. Maybe change it into something more “the countenance and behaviour of a modern woman” or a “future woman”. Something of the sorts would fit the character better.

Moving on to the plot.

I have been a fan of fairy tales since I was a small child and I had a whole collection of such books, including one that had Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. So, it was interesting to see a retelling of it, especially gender bent. And, it proved to be even more interesting, when you developed the plot beyond the “street rat finds magic lamp, disguise themselves as royalty and charms child of ruler”. No, in this case, there is more than meets the eye. We still have the sorcerer who wished to marry the love interest, of course, but there are other intrigues.