“Give me thy hand,” said the Queen, “and let us be friends. For does not the poet say, one true-hearted friend is worth ten thousand camels laden with gold?”
This the Jinni pondered, before replying, “The poet also says, woe to the man who befriends the jinn, for he shakes hands with death.”
The Forbidden Wish (pg. 12)
While modern English has only one word for love, the ancient Greeks had several. Eros is the kind of romantic, heady, passionate love that we tend to find in YA romance novels. It’s the kind of love that is intoxicating and often dangerous. Of course, we all need a dash of eros in our lives. What’s life without a little romance? But there’s another kind of love. Philia. Philia is platonic love. Fraternal love. It’s the kind of love you feel for your closest friends. It’s the love that turns strangers into family. And though The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury certainly has its share of eros, I believe that the core of this book is philia. At its heart, this is a book about friendship.
The Forbidden Wish turns the story of Aladdin on its head. It transforms the princess into a cloak-and-dagger freedom fighter. Aladdin remains the lovable thief of the Disney film, but he has a vengeful streak that I thought really rounded him out as a character. The jinni, a girl in this version of the story, is an embittered creature of smoke and flame nursing 4,000 years’ worth of pain and regret. Zahra, whose jinn name is Curl-of-the-Tiger’s-Tail, Smoke-on-the-Wind, Girl-Who-Gives-the-Stars-Away (isn’t that just lovely?), winds up bound to Aladdin when he takes possession of her lamp, and she helps him become a prince in an effort to avenge his parents. Throughout their time together, the two form a deep friendship that turns into something more. But, though Aladdin and Zahra’s romance is pivotal to the story, Zahra’s friendships with other women in the story are just as important.
When Aladdin first meets Zahra, he quickly learns that she is known in the annals of history as the Fair Betrayer, a jinni who double-crossed a mighty queen and brought about the ruin of an entire civilization. We find out, of course, that there’s more to the story, but Zahra was involved in the death of her dearest friend, and the pain and joy of that friendship are as central to Zahra’s character as her status as a jinni. It is the love she bore Roshana, the queen, that makes Zahra wary of becoming attached to Aladdin. She has hurt a human she loved before, and she lives in fear of destroying another. It was a nice departure from the tired YA trope of a young woman who doesn’t believe in love because she doesn’t have time for it or doesn’t think it’s important. How many YA protagonists have we read who are “different from other girls” because they think romance is stupid? That isn’t Zahra. She believes in the power of love and she is terrified of that power. In her 4,000 years of experience, love has only ever resulted in destruction.
The other beautiful example of philia is the love between the princess, Caspida, and her “Watchmaidens.” They’re a group of young women who serve a dual purpose as her handmaidens and bodyguards. They fight fiercely and they love fiercely. The bone-deep friendship they show for one another, and for the princess, struck me as the kind of thing I wish I could see more of in literature, especially YA literature. There’s no competition among these friends. They don’t begrudge Caspida her role as princess, nor do they jockey for position at her side. These are friends that have lived their whole lives together and, if they die, they will die together. The author makes it clear that their trust in one another is absolute. In media, female friendship is often portrayed with a healthy dose of gossip and backstabbing. In The Forbidden Wish, every example of female friendship is pure and unadulterated. It was a joy to see.
In the end, Zahra is able to triumph, and she gains the strength to do so through love for Aladdin and love for her friends. Having once failed her dearest friend, Roshana, she finds the power within herself now to save herself and everyone she cares about. The friendship she lost, once the source of so much bitterness, becomes the catalyst for her to make different choices this time around.
I enjoyed this refreshing take on the Aladdin story. There’s a lot more to it than what I’ve talked about here. There’s political intrigue, magic, terrific world building, and adventure. But most of all, there’s philia.
Happy Reading!
