There's things to enjoy here, but you have to wade through some clunky prose and awkward characterization. Bashir Boutros is a shy Lebanese-American boy lacking confidence who becomes the world's least likely hero when he becomes the accidental owner of a long lost ring with a djinn inside. Ownership of the ring (which he cannot remove) unexpected makes Bashir a target of the demon Ali Adin (Aladdin) and a person of interest to the largely decimated order of secret magi. Bashir is more or less dragged from adventure to adventure, managing to survive and to continue to accumulate power through luck all while refusing to fight and endless bemoaning his lack of friends in middle school. I wanted to like the woke, but it kept falling into long periods of tedious slog.

If you’re looking for something to scratch the itch of Percy Jackson, and steeped in Arab culture, look no further!