A Blade So Black

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.

There is no racism in this book, not against white people, black people, or people of any other color, ethnicity or nationality. I read it quickly, and I liked the Alice references, except for the thing a lot of people make, by not understanding that the Queen of Hearts has nothing to do with the White and the Red Queen - two very different games, cards and chess, from two different books. I can understand most people just throw the two books in one basket, and forget that the world “through the looking glass” is not Wonderland. Maybe they never got it. Another classic destroyed by Disney :-DBut - that being said, I did like the mythology L.L.McKinney created for her Wonderland, with the Royal family, introducing the BLACK Queen... I am also fascinated by her Wonderland and glad that she created something own, like the Bubbles and the scary forest of the blind thief, and the shattered sky... fascinating.This really isn't an independent novel, but the first of a series of novels, and I'm looking after reading the next book. I hope it won't be a disappointment, like so many other sequels.Now, to the other issue, which really is irrelevantI read this book because of the L.L.McKinney vs. Amélie Wen Zhao issue, and I decided to read this one first, simply because it was published first.Now... I find it unfair to push all the hatred on L.L.McKinney, and to bash her books because of it, because she didn't start the ruckus, and her reaction is fully understandable, concerning where she comes from. Most USonians don't know anything about the history, slavery and other issues in any other country, and very little about these things even in USA, except those that concern themselves. L.L.McKinney, being a black USonian woman, would naturally interpret what she read as she did, and react on it the way she did. There is absolutely nothing horrible, offensive, mean, or inappropriate in that. Now, I haven't yet read Amélie Wen Zhao's book, but I don't think it is racist, because she is talking about the slavery that is familiar to her, that in China. But, more about that in the review of that book. Also, Amélie Wen Zhao's book has been published, [b:Blood Heir 42359583 Blood Heir (Blood Heir Trilogy, #1) Amélie Wen Zhao https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1544518401l/42359583.SY75.jpg 59875090] only half a year later from the original publishing date, and she is working on the sequel, so all this brouhaha didn't damage her career, reputation, writing at all, so stop punishing people!