There’s a Wonderland exhibition going on right now, so obviously I’ve got to read something Alice-related while waiting for my friend to finish Alice in Wonderland so we can visit. Ever Alice sounded like it was right up my alley, so I was really excited to read it.
As you can expect, Alice’s tales of wonderland did not go over well. Perplexed, her parents sent her to doctor after doctor until she landed in an asylum. Desperate to get home in time for her sister’s wedding, Alice agrees to go for an experimental treatment (which sounds like a Lobotomy to me). At the last minute, the White Rabbit reappears and asks Alice to go back to Wonderland, where she must kill the Queen of Hearts.
At the same time, Rosamund, the Queen of Hearts, sees traitors everywhere. And with a bull out for her after she executed her husband for treason, she cannot afford to let anything slip.
My first impressions after reading this were: this is a really topsy-turvy world. I’m not sure if I was this confused after reading Alice in Wonderland because that was quite some time ago. It’s not just the world-building, with the way words mean the opposite of what they normally do and the absurd practices (the tea sounds disgusting), it’s also the way everything seemed disconnected. I knew of the plot to kill the Red Queen but like Alice, I was extremely confused by everything else.
I was also very confused by the love story. [MILD SPOILER ALERT] Alice and the prince fell in love almost immediately and it seemed pretty mutual despite him having previous paramours. But, it was such an insta-love story that I couldn’t buy it – in fact, I don’t think the book gave me any reason to buy their romance story, so it was one of the parts that I really didn’t enjoy.
In addition, I wasn’t a fan of the ending. It was pretty cool until they went back to the real world. I’m not going to give any specifics, but it felt like a cop-out for the explanation of Wonderland.
But what saved the book for me was Alice and Rosamund. Alice was probably the most normal person there and her reactions were exactly like mine. I thought that her internal struggle – on whether to kill the Red Queen – was very well-written and the book captured her confusion perfectly. And although Rosamund was the capricious, crazy Red Queen, I found that I had quite a soft-spot for her. It’s clear that she’s got some serious problems and I would have loved for her to be able to face herself. It didn’t happen, sadly, but I thought that she was an interesting character and I wanted to find out more about why she became that way.
Overall, I enjoyed this. Sadly, the ending and the insta-love spoiled quite a bit of my enjoyment, but if that doesn’t bother you and you want to go back to the unpredictable world of Wonderland, then I think you would enjoy this.