Tag Archives: Jessica Khoury

Review: Last of Her Name by Jessica Khoury

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Last of Her Name
Jessica Khoury
Scholastic Press
Published February 26, 2019

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

About Last of Her Name

Sixteen years ago, rebellion swept the galaxy known as the Belt of Jewels. Every member of the royal family was murdered–down to their youngest child, Princess Anya–and the Union government rose in its place. But Stacia doesn’t think much about politics. She spends her days half-wild, rambling her father’s vineyard with her closest friends, Clio and Pol.

That all changes the day a Union ship appears in town, carrying the leader of the Belt himself, the Direktor Eminent. The Direktor claims that Princess Anya is alive, and that Stacia’s sleepy village is a den of empire loyalists, intent on hiding her. When Stacia is identified as the lost princess, her provincial home explodes into a nightmare.

Pol smuggles her away to a hidden escape ship in the chaos, leaving Clio in the hands of the Union. With everything she knows threading away into stars, Stacia sets her heart on a single mission. She will find and rescue Clio, even with the whole galaxy on her trail.

My Review

Okay, wow. I really wanted to read this book after reading and loving FORBIDDEN WISH by the same author. It’s so different, though, that I kept hesitating to read it, but I’m glad I finally jumped into LAST OF HER NAME

I think my favorite part is the story world. The belt of planets named for jewels with different environments and different humans adapted to life on those planets made it seem really believable and unique. It felt like Star Wars meets Anastasia, and I loved that.

Some parts of the story felt a little slow to me, especially toward the middle of the book. I felt like it took a long time for Stacia to come into her own and begin to make strategic moves and become an active player in her story. Early in the story especially, she seemed to look to others a lot for what to do. I think I really got hooked on the book once she began to take charge and make decisions herself.

On the whole, though, I think the characters are really memorable and well-developed. I loved the way Stacia ended up with a team around her, and I loved each of those characters. I think fans of Claudia Gray’s DEFY THE STARS and Beth Revis’s ACROSS THE UNIVERSE will want to read LAST OF HER NAME.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Stacia is white and human. Other characters are adapted humans (some have horns or can manipulate gravity or have other abilities) and face prejudice from unadapted humans.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Intense kissing between a boy and girl while they lie side by side on a bunk. Two minor female characters appear to have romantic feelings for one another.

Spiritual Content
Space travel is based on the use of a prism, which contains energy. Each prism is connected to other prisms.

Violent Content
Some scenes show characters being executed by military personnel. Some scenes imply that torture or execution happens off-scene. Situations of peril occur throughout.

Drug Content
Some adults consume alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of LAST OF HER NAME in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Forbidden Wish
Jessica Khoury
Razorbill
Available February 23, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

From Goodreads:

When Aladdin discovers Zahra’s jinni lamp, Zahra is thrust back into a world she hasn’t seen in hundreds of years—a world where magic is forbidden and Zahra’s very existence is illegal. She must disguise herself to stay alive, using ancient shape-shifting magic, until her new master has selected his three wishes.

But when the King of the Jinn offers Zahra a chance to be free of her lamp forever, she seizes the opportunity—only to discover she is falling in love with Aladdin. When saving herself means betraying him, Zahra must decide once and for all: is winning her freedom worth losing her heart?

As time unravels and her enemies close in, Zahra finds herself suspended between danger and desire in this dazzling retelling of Aladdin from acclaimed author Jessica Khoury.

My Review:

At first I was a little unsure about reading this book. Then I read the first few chapters as a sample from NetGalley, and that was enough to get me hooked! I loved the vivid descriptions of the landscape and culture. I loved the way Khoury developed this whole culture and hierarchy of jinni. The story felt larger than a simple fairytale and seated in a vast, complex world. I loved that it’s as if Zahra is relating her story to her friend the entire time. It definitely created this personal, humanized voice in what might otherwise have seemed an otherworldly narrator.

The romance was a little steamier than the Disney version I grew up with, but much of the heart and soul of the story remained perfectly intact. Aladdin is indeed the honorable, worthy thief. The princess is strong and independent. And the jinni proves that heart and wit combined make for a formidable adversary.

Recommended Age 15 up

Cultural Elements
This is a retelling of Aladdin. It definitely captures the feel of a Middle Eastern setting and characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some passionate kissing. A boy removes his shirt and unbuttons a girl’s top. At the beginning, a girl hints that Aladdin has been with many other girls.

Spiritual Content
Different types of jinni possess varied types of magic and power, the most powerful being the Shaitan. Jinni cannot reproduce, so they depend on human sacrifices to replenish their numbers. The jinni of the lamp grants her master three wishes. Sometimes she turns those wishes on her master to bring him ruin. Every wish comes with a price, but she does not always know what the price will be before the wish is made.

Violent Content
Brief battle scenes. A woman fights a man for sport in a club. A woman poisons her enemy. A man found guilty of serious crimes is sentenced to death by beheading.

Drug Content
Aladdin gets drunk on wine (he drinks alcohol more than once). Several references to smoking drugs. A powerful leader has been reduced to a drug addict. It’s unclear if that happened by his choice or if he was manipulated into dependence.

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Review: The Forbidden Wish (Sneak Peek) by Jessica Khoury

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Forbidden Wish (Sneak Peak)
Jessica Khoury
Penguin Young Readers Group/Razorbill

When a young thief summons Zahra from her lamp, she must grant him three wishes. But the world in which he lives forbids her presence, and her unwilling allegiance to her jinni kin means she may have to betray him at any moment. Nevertheless, she can’t help falling for the charming, fearless boy named Aladdin.

This sneak peek contains the first few chapters of this novel. If you’ve been lurking around The Story Sanctuary long, you’ll already know I’m a total sucker for fairytale retellings. So this was one I couldn’t resist checking out in advance.

I love that the story is told from the jinni’s perspective and that the love angle comes into play between the jinni and Aladdin. Aladdin is a bit of a player—which my little fairytale romance heart wasn’t too crazy about—so it seems all the girls know him and have experienced falling in a dead faint at his feet. He’s still the clever, quick little thief. The streets of his city really came to life in this tale. It felt like something between the underbelly of old London and a Middle Eastern town. Very fantasy, very believably gritty and dirty and dangerous.

This is definitely a book I’ll keep on my watch list to read when it comes out next February.

Language Content (Chapters 1-8)
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content (Chapters 1-8)
None.

Spiritual Content (Chapters 1-8)
The story is told from the point-of-view of Aladdin’s genie. Other genies exist, and there is a lot of animosity between them and humans.

Violence (Chapters 1-8)
A boy is beaten by soldiers. A burly man and a young woman face off in a fight (for money.) Brief descriptions of a battle that led to the fall of a kingdom.

Drug Content (Chapters 1-8)
Aladdin goes to a bar to drink wine and gets a bit drunk.