After Alice

So many big words... it's hard to see the story under all of them.

Ok... so she needed to get the iron corset off... but why did she get off her underwear that's UNDER the iron corset and doesn't stop her from getting off the iron corset? Why is she naked?

Why is Lydia such a bitch?

I suppose Lewis Carroll had Asperger's, because it seems to me that Gregory Maguire thought he was mean, and I don't read that in Alices.

I bet this guy is American. Because he thinks Victorian Englishmen didn't have milk. Also, he thinks that barley water takes about as much time as lemonade. Although lemonade properly made takes more than five minutes. Because you get better lemonade when you make sugar syrup and not mix the sugar in the water. But, what ever.

Also, 15 years old girls were already little ladies, and knew well enough what was appropriate and what was not.

I'm having difficulties in finding anything positive about this... I kind of like Ada though, and that's kind of a big plus, but... uh. Gregory Maguire should have let Lewis Carroll be.

I didn't dislike this, but didn't really like it either, so 3 stars it is. The Ada parts were a bit too much like Alice in Wonderland and the Lydia parts seemed forced much of the time. Not a bad book, but not what I was expecting.

Dear me. I am so conflicted! See, on the one hand Gregory Maguire is one of my all time favorite writers. His ability to spin in his own particular brand of whimsy into classic tales is unrivaled. I've loved every single one of his books that I've set my hands on. Which is why I had such high hopes for this particular story. Alice in Wonderland is an iconic piece of childhood. Everyone knows it in some capacity or another. For me, it was the book I most loved to have read to me before bed. I've read every iteration of it that I could get. Needless to say, I was thrilled to read this.

Now, I find myself finished and rather conflicted about After Alice. I'll start with the good. First off, Maguire does indeed pay homage to his source material. Readers can expect to see cameos from some of their favorite quirky characters, and Ada's interactions with them are just as delightful as her predecessors. Also, the whole feel of the original is still here. The erudite vocabulary, the nonsense that isn't quite nonsense, all of it is there in vivid color. The portions that take place in Wonderland are simply darling. Ada's stubborn ways, pitted against the inhabitants of this wonderful world, were just too much fun.

What brings this book down, in my opinion, is its use of dual points of view. Lydia, Alice's older sister, has her own experiences chronicled in alternating chapters. Which means, of course, that every other chapter is filled with her Lydia's own musings and personality. Lydia isn't easy to like. She is, in fact, rather insufferable. Having her chapters mixed in with Ada's own whimsical ones made this book more difficult to read than I expected. I almost wanted to skip every other chapter, just to get back to Wonderland. If this book had focused solely on Ada's chapters, you would see a much different review being written. That part, I loved.

So, final thoughts? This isn't Maguire's strongest book. While it definitely has a lot in it to love, I feel like long time readers of Maguire's works will probably fall into the same boat that I am in right now. Feeling torn between wanting to love this, and dreaming of what might have been. There is still much of the Maguire magic in this book! If you're a completionist, I'd still give this a spot on your TBR.

All I want to say now is I am disappointed in this book. (My further review will be written later)

Well, that was extremely disappointing.
I had to read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass for a class recently, so I figured it was the perfect time to finally read this book I had bought a while ago on a whim. I've loved Alice in Wonderland since I was very little, it has always been one of my all-time favorites. So, of course, I was excited to see that Gregory Maguire had done what he did for the Wizard of Oz with Alice in Wonderland. But this was nothing at all like Wicked and was not good. This was trying so hard to capture the quirky weirdness of Alice in Wonderland, and it failed spectacularly. While the idea of developing the story of a character Alice briefly named as a friend from home was definitely a cool one, it did not live up to its potential. It was so boring to see a rational and logical girl like Ada come into Wonderland and make sense of the world she saw. I felt that it was completely missing the point and the tone of Alice in Wonderland and I honestly expected so much more from someone like Gregory Maguire. Also, it felt like nothing happened at all. The plot was pretty much nonexistent and flat, and nothing changed at all. I spent the entirety of the novel waiting and waiting for it to pick up and become interesting, but it never did. However, I did appreciate certain passages throughout, as Maguire is usually a decent writer and I highlighted a few lines here and there that were really thought-provoking and interesting. But otherwise, this book was not what it should have or could have been, and I'm really disappointed in it.

This book was challenging to read. It was as if someone had randomly deleted about two-thirds of the words. There are some real philosophic gems buried in here if you can get through it.

Perhaps my confusion lies in a lack of familiarity with the original text. I plan to reread ‘Alice in Wonderland' and then reconsider this one.