Ancient's Smashing Reviews

Spinning Bottles

But trust me, ill get more into that later.

I know you are using names to signify who the 1st person perspective is with each change, but I disagree with the decision on a fundamental level to have multiple 1st person perspectives. This takes away from the strength of the actual main character and is extremely confusing. No number of 'signals' will help even when you take the time to specify who it is. I have found in principle it is best to have only one 1st-person perspective and to keep the rest 3rd person. This will not take away from the review score because it is more of a style preference, but still advise I think you should take into serious consideration because the pros-cons will have a heavy impact on your readers.

Side characters: Smashing! - The strength of Girl-Aladdin is magnified by a good cast of side-characters. They push and pull her into her comfort zone and out of her shell as needed, force her to use different sides of herself to reveal a well-rounded living, breathing person beneath the surface level description offered above. This is made even more impressive as each of the side characters have their own subplots, developed character, and have thoughts and opinions independent of, and sometimes contrary to, the main character. They bicker and fight, they support each other, and at the end of it the greatest strength of the story is literally and narratively by this family.

The genie has a tendency to behave in a way as if this is his first master-servant time. More specifically he doesn't consider very basic things. Example: whether or not he might be seen by other people. You'd think something like this might have been brought up or been a dilemna in a previous time. I can understand certain things have never been addressed before by previous masters, esspecially where technology might be involved, but this is basic. It makes him look incompotent, or at the very least, inexperienced, when the impression I think we are supposed to have is someone who has a lot of years under his belt but is a bit immature. That combination is difficult to pull off because its two traits that are polar opposite, but while it can be suspended by disbelief for the most part, the one thing you don't do is make him inexperienced in basic things. It is fair enough for her to ask it, but then I'd imagine his response to be "yeah see, already covered that. I've been invisible this whole time. But we can discuss your preference. Not sure about cameras tho, thats new. And dont even get me started on the invention of 'dog', that took forever to figure out a work around."

I haven't read up to the point that the moron joins in on the family so I can only imagine the damage she does to it by sheer proximity. Not even drama. Just in quality.