Alice

Dark urban fantasy version of Alice in Wonderland. Sounds great to me, right in my wheelhouse. Nice touch opening it in an insane asylum. If only it lived up to my expectations.

Other than the character names, this bears no resemblance to the source material. Characters have no personality, nothing even close to the original which is packed with weird, colorful characters. There is very little humor to be found, which is certainly one of things I loved best about the original.

But, let's say I forget about comparing it to the source material and think of it as a book on its own merits. Alice seems like an outline with dialogue, nothing is developed. The two main characters, Alice and Hatcher (who I assume is the Mad Hatter) have conveniently lost their memories, therefore the author doesn't have to develop character motivation. When convenient, suddenly they will remember part of their backstory to serve the plot. Hatcher and Alice know what to do based on dreams and visions instead of earning or learning anything. Dreams and visions are a weak device at the best of times and certainly shouldn't be used to replace character development. Not to mention that these people have no personality to speak of.

Mostly, Alice and Hatcher roam around the Old City (the crime-ridden part of a fantasy version of New York) and meet different evil and powerful denizens of this world. Except they're basically all the same. They look different and have different lairs, but can't tell you how they otherwise standout from each other. The Big Bad doesn't even get enough interaction to develop a personality.

The “dark fantasy” part revolves around the rape, torture, selling etc. of women and girls. No other crimes. All the baddies are men who want to consume women in some way or another. No other motivations from the villains, other than generic desire for “power.” Since this abuse of women isn't given any emotional resonance, it feels like a cheap trick.

I'm glad the book was short and fast moving. The ending itself though, was another problem. In the final conflict, Alice (who discovers at a convenient moment earlier that she is a magician) realizes she can just wish things to happen and uses this to dispatch with the person they've been chasing all this time. A bit anticlimactic, even though I wasn't that into the story, I expected a bit more to the final conflict after all the time spent on the setup.

The book was really fast paced, there was so much happening that there wasn't any time to properly digest what I was reading, I just turned page after page, until the last one. It gets two points for being so “readable”, however, the more I sit on, the more I wish I'd just skipped this one. The writing was not phenomenal, the characters were underdeveloped and the ending was unexpectedly flat, but the action until that point kind of made up of for that.

However, I can't overlook the gratuitous sexual violence. I don't see how it added to the story. The men were portrayed as the scum of the earth, the most sadistic and vile subhumans that could possibly be. Even Hatcher, who wasn't like the rest, who had a heart of gold, supposedly, behaved dubiously on a couple occasions. The women were utterly defenseless in the face of relentless abuse. Why there were resigned to this fate, and not armed to their teeth, beats me. A lot of bad guys do end up dying by the end, but only because Alice finds out she has special powers.

I have to give some credit to the author though, I don't think there's been another book that made me this sick to my stomach. It's going to take all of Rainbow Roswell's books before I'm able to smile again. And at least 50 videos with puppies.

FIRST, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will forever be a book that's imagery and style I will hold dearly. Alright, with that out of the way.

This is a reimagining of Wonderland, the place and to mature version of the themes, TWISTED in the most ramped up way. A lot to do with the rape and sex trafficking, it is hard to stomach at times but also at times feels...normalized? This is how this world is. It is vile. As the book keeps moving forward Alice gets more empowered but a little over halfway through, the rate is that of a freight train. I still enjoyed the journey, and Henry does a great job of taking these characters in frightening and unique directions, but it felt like the book was a car going downhill with the breaks pressed halfway down and then all of a sudden they are just released.

Then as we get to the climax see how little of this is left and I wasn't sure how they could possibly resolve multiple big bads. With so much pain inflicted, often being presented the aftermath of prolonged periods of evil reigning supreme, the end doesn't feel gratifying. I wasn't asking for this torture filled revenge...but some greater catharsis. These entities that have ruled this city have fallen relatively easily but these bads, these are the WORST of the worst. And the resolutions are simplest of all.

With the ending, and not having a great affinity for Through the Looking Glass, I'm not too keen on continuing the journey. I enjoyed this version of Wonderland well enough but I have scratched the itch I needed to scratch.

2.5
This had great potential when I read the synopsis but ending up feeling flat and boring just like the one dimensional characters. Character deaths just happened and were easy despite the book trying to make them seem strong and terrifying (Caterpillar, Walrus, White Rabbit). They would gain their memories at very convenient times and I honestly wonder what the point was (just like the romance). And the most pointless and non-threatening main villain (besides the White Rabbit) was the Jabberwocky. I forgot about him and so did the author with the most easy and anti-climactic ending of a Evil Power Magician I've read in a long time. There was some positives like the settings, how the main key characters owned territories, the Cheshire cat (wasn't amazing just biased really). It's an easy, quick story to finish that's not horrible but had so much potential to be amazing.