Review: I Only Made it Seven Chapters into This Book… (Spoilers)

There are terrible books, and then there are truly terrible books.

Terrible books are the ones where you read them and though the characters may suck, the plot be nonsensical and contrived, the dialogue forced, and the reasons why it’s a New York Times Best Seller beyond your comprehension, you still somehow persevere to the end, albeit with fewer brain cells than you started off with. Truly terrible books, on the other hand, are the ones where you pick it up, read a few chapters, question your life choices, and have the overwhelming urge to throw the book into the nearest dumpster.

This, my friends, was my experience attempting to read The Orphan’s Wish by Melanie Dickerson, a “Christian” YA novel that attempts to retell the Aladdin story set in Hagenheim, Germany in the early 1400s (more on that in a sec). I got this novel as a Christmas gift from one of my aunts last year, and when I saw the AI-generated cover, knew I was in for a load of brain rot. When I turned it over and saw the Mardel sticker, knew for sure that I would be lucky if I managed to get through without developing some sort of psychosomatic disorder as I tried to block it from my mind. Thus, my early attempts to read this went horribly as I realized that it was a truly terrible book and wondered how Dickerson ever managed to win any awards.

The first problem I have with this book is that – like many of her other books – it’s supposed to be a historical romance set in 1400-1410s Hagenheim, Germany. In fact, if you go to Dickerson’s website, it’s confirmed to be a historical romance.

Now, I have nothing against a good historical romance/historical fiction novel. One of my favorite authors is a woman named Sharon Kay Penman (whose books I was reading while trying to read The Orphan’s Wish) and she wrote incredibly compelling, well-researched books about the Welsh princes and the Plantagenet kings of England and all the things going on during that time period. In fact, her books are so well researched that an entire scene in her book Falls the Shadow was actually taken almost word for word from a medieval historian and I would happily recommend it for any history nerd wanting to learn about the medieval period.

However, notice how I’m lauding Penman for the research she did while writing her books to make them as historically accurate as possible. In reading The Orphan’s Wish, compared to Penman, the research that apparently went into it was superficial at best, nonexistent at worst. As I said before, this is a story that takes place in 1400-1410s Hagenheim, Germany and is a retelling of the Aladdin story. This is problematic for the plot on two levels.

The first reason why is because Aladdin comes from the Holy Land and how he’s taken from there and taken to Hagenheim is a kindly priest saves him after he tries to steal from a knight’s saddlebag. At this point, the crusades had been over for over a century, but there were still tensions between the Europeans and who they called the Saracens (those of Arab descent). The priest taking in Aladdin, while not totally improbable, would’ve been unlikely, and him taking him to an actual orphanage run by a Duke would’ve certainly never happened.

This leads to my second historical issue with this book. While orphanages existed as far back as 400 AD, during the medieval period, official orphanages weren’t a thing. Rather, orphans would fall under the care of the Church or would be taken as apprentices once they were old enough. It wasn’t until the breakdown of the medieval social structure and monasteries during the 15th century that continued to accelerate over the years that England finally came up with the Poor Relief Act in 1601 in response to it, in which any poor who couldn’t work were to live in almshouses or poorhouses. Thus, Aladdin being taken in to live in an orphanage would’ve been improbable. What would’ve likely happened to him is that he would’ve become a monk or priest and this book never would’ve happened.

Because of this, the events of the book are so improbable that it cannot be believed. Had it taken place in somewhere like Spain or Italy, it would’ve perhaps made a bit more sense, but even then, the orphanage problem is so prevalent that unless it were rewritten, it would still be unbelievable. Plots often rely heavily on the setting, so if you screw that up, it can cause plot holes that can become major if not fixed quickly. What this means for the plot of this book is that it shatters under the weight of its own improbability. All because Dickerson didn’t do enough research and had to stick with her setting of 1400s Hagenheim, Germany for…reasons.

The second reason why I don’t like this book is because the characters are, in romance-novel fashion, incredibly stale. Sure, maybe they would get better over the course of the book, but after seven chapters of generic dialogue, contrived conflicts, and even more generic motivations, I just couldn’t take anymore. You can make a romantic story and have your characters be compelling human beings instead of stereotype, cardboard-cutout, self-insert people for 13-18-year-olds to imagine themselves as.

The third reason why I hate The Orphan’s Wish is because it’s a “Christian” YA novel. It’s not that I – even though I’m a Christian – hate everything Christian. I would be thrilled to read a book meant for young adults that’s Christian and well-written. However, as I’ve pointed out several times here on The Tanuki Corner, Christian media companies of every type seem to suffer from the same problem that woke media companies suffer from: pandering. They have a built-in audience if they do that and in the case of books, the built in audience for secular authors is the Teacher/Librarians’ Unions if they pander to woke talking points and for Christians, its Christian bookstores (like Mardel) if they pander to religion by saying “God” or “Jesus” enough times.

What this means is that the book becomes less about the story and more about the message and that’s exactly what we get in The Orphan’s Wish. It’s only “Christian” because it mentions God a few times. But to make it worse is that when He is mentioned, He’s shoehorned in, like Dickerson had a list of pre-requisites to being published and one of them was, “You must mention God X number of times.” It makes the book more cringey than it already is. If you want to put the Gospel or Christian theology in your writing, great, but make sure it’s well written and the characters likeable first. When you couldn’t care less about the characters, then it makes the messaging take center stage and it becomes even more cringe.

Maybe I should write a blog post about how to write Christian characters and stories at some point. Hmmm….

Until next time,

M.J.