A Blade So Black
Ratings13
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings13
Average rating4.2
"A Blade So Black is the fantasy book I've been waiting for my whole life." —Angie Thomas, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Hate U Give For fans of Marissa Meyer, L.L. McKinney's A Blade So Black delivers an irresistible urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland... but it's not the Wonderland you remember. The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she's trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew. Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice's handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she'll need to use everything she's learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head... literally. Debut author L.L. McKinney delivers an action-packed twist on an old classic, full of romance and otherworldly intrigue. And don't miss the thrilling sequel, A Dream So Dark! An Imprint Book "Mixing elements of Alice in Wonderland and Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Delectable." —Entertainment Weekly
Series
2 primary booksThe Nightmare-Verse is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2018 with contributions by L.L. McKinney.
Reviews with the most likes.
I've seen the point brought up that so many fantasy protagonists have really neglectful parents. Who lets their kid be gone for an unknown amount of time doing something “important” that their kid refuses to tell them about because it's a “secret”? This book makes a point of how NOT neglectful Alice's mother is. The blurb calls her overprotective, but really it's just normal protective. Alice's mom just wants to know her daughter hasn't been shot by the police when she's gone for 24 hours and not answering her phone, that seems normal to me! I actually enjoyed how that was different than a lot of fantasy YA, even if it's really a small sideplot.
In the main plot, Alice is a Dreamwalker, wielding Figment Blades and her own Muchness to kill the Nightmares that try to cross from Wonderland to our world. Her mentor is Addison Hatta, an exile from Wonderland who's been charged to guard his Gateway and train new Dreamwalkers. Along the way we meet two more Dreamwalkers, more exiled Wonderlanders, and learn a bit about the war in Wonderland and why they're exiled but still charged with such an important mission as guiding the Gateways between our world and theirs.
About the only thing I didn't like about this book was how it left so many questions unanswered at the end. We got a cliffhanger to lead us into the sequel, A Dream So Dark, but it isn't due out until September! I'm also wondering where the Cheshire Cat is - he's too instrumental a character to leave out, I would think - but I have a few possible ideas about where the author is going with that, so I'm anxious for the sequel, to see if I'm right.
A Blade So Black is a very unique take on Wonderland by a POC author, starring a POC heroine. There's also an adorable lesbian couple as side characters. With minority racial representation, a fairy tale base, and a splash of LGBT+ rep, this book checked a lot of the boxes I look for in my fantasy. It wasn't the best YA fantasy that I've read in the last year, but it was definitely fun!
You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.
L.L. McKinney took what you knew about Alice in Wonderland and spun it on it's head.
What makes this book so special is that it really delves deep into so many important intersections. It is what has made this stronger in my eyes versus other retellings.
