Name: Neelam Kolage
College: KES Pratibha College of Education Chinchwad Pune-19.
Year : Second Year 2024-26
Let’s start with what I liked: Far From Agrabah, I thought, was initially quite clever in that the bulk of the book actually takes place in the Kingdom of Ababwa, which my fellow Disney enthusiasts would know to be the fictionalized realm where Prince Ali aka Aladdin rules. What really made me chuckle was when Genie was working his magic, seeing that the land of Ababwa was being illustrated onto the map right in front of Jasmine and Aladdin’s eyes, it just made for a completely awkwardly sweet moment and definitely made me think of the live action movie that this book was based on, which for most part I really enjoyed!
What initially started to throw me off though about Far From Agrabah were the chapters throughout the main story though, where the reader learns about some prestigious and noteworthy rulers and how they came to govern their lands and how their realm was able to flourish. In theory I thought that these would have been quite fun and fascinating to read about, but truth be told I was just wondering how they connected back to our main story, with some of the Sultans and people of note slightly getting lost on me!
Whilst I enjoyed the originality of Far From Agrabah, I did find myself feeling the pacing to be a little bit slow, well truthfully quite a lot slow, so much so that I actually procrastinated finishing it because there were moments throughout this book where I personally felt like not much happened at all! To me, it felt like there were a stream of pages where we’re treated to the description of the kingdom of Ababwa, which is all well and good, I appreciate being able to visualize it but sometimes the descriptions just went on a bit too long, I thought.