Arabian Nights & Arabian Nights: Traditional Tales from a Thousand and One Nights, Contemporary Tales for Adults by Clive Johnson

Arabian Nights & Arabian Nights: Traditional Tales from a Thousand and One Nights, Contemporary Tales for Adults by Clive Johnson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading the translations and the afterword sections a lot. I learned things I didn’t know and was able to view the tales from a new angle, through a different lens. That part of this book is really well done and enjoyable to read, and easily earns three to four stars. What I didn’t enjoy was the retelling sections, in a modern voice. For me, this part was flat and unpolished, the characters didn’t feel fleshed out and the dialogue felt unnatural. It was all telling and little to no showing. I ended up skipping over the modern versions and just enjoying the translations and afterward sections. Overall, I feel this would be a better read without the modern versions or with considerable editing and polish but the rest of the read felt very well done. I received an ARC through the author in exchange for an honest review.