Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee through the Pool of Tears after a bloody palace coup staged by the murderous Redd shattered her world. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the surreal, violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical children’s sojourn Alice in Wonderland. Alyss had trusted Lewis Carroll to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere would find her and bring her home.
But Carroll had got it all wrong. He even misspelled her name! If not for the intrepid Hatter Madigan, a member of the Millinery (Wonderland’s security force) who after a 13 year search eventually tracked Alyss to London, she may have become just another society woman sipping tea in a too-tight bodice instead of returning to Wonderland to battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.
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I went ahead and read the original two Alice stories, before starting on this book. I figured it might help to have the originals fresh in my mind, before diving into the "true story" version. It in no way helped.
That's not to say the book was bad. On the contrary I enjoyed it. I mean, don't get me wrong. This was definitely not a book aimed at my age range or reading level. There's a good reason you'll find it in the teen section of the library. It's quite simply because it's just not that challenging of a read. It's a fun read, but not a challenge.
To begin with, the story is a little slow. Interesting, but not exactly action packed. The writing's juvenile at times, but I really can't get myself to hold a book based on a children's story aimed at teenagers to a very high standard. I know some of you may disagree, but that's just my opinion. I'd say this falls about "middle of the road", as far as writing skills are concerned. Not great, but by no means horrible.
One interesting thing I noticed was a strong similarity between Redd's queendom (yes...QUEENdom) and the society depicted within one of my previous reads...1984. This could go either of two ways. Either Beddor was paying homage to Orwell...or he was ripping him off and counting on his teenage readers to be not well-read enough to realize. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here. What can I say? I'm in a good mood.
One thing would have made this book substantially better. If it had no tie Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Honestly, aside from the tie-in of having Carroll publish Alyss's story, there really wasn't much point to tying one to the other. The Looking Glass Wars can stand perfectly well on it's own. References to the original work are barely noticeable and not all that important in the grand scheme. Having the books connected seems to serve more as free publicity for Beddor's work. Like Alice in Wonderland Why not read this book too, then? Pointless.
Bottom line, it's a decent book. Like I said, not great but not horrible. Definitely a book to read if you've got an hour or so to spare and wanna give your brain a little rest.
~Missy
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