Alice

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.

liked nothing and no one

This tale begins long after the fallout of Alice's return from her first trip into this alternate world that has left some serious emotional and psychological scars on her. She is struggeling to remeber the presetn and so the past and somewhat weird is even harder to rember. Then one night a fire breaks out and she and a man named Hatcher finnaly manges to exape the assilum. Alice find out that alot of the things she thought she knew may not actually be true
Now, to the actual rewiev part, I mean I do not know where to start even. Like I liked the overall story. I actually quite enjoyed reading it alot. Yet, I do not like it amazingly well. Like the connection to actual wounderland was not enough. They kinda made wounderland be less magical by well just somewhat removing it. It is mainly just the new vs the old city. Or how I read it, the new moderized and standard way of living and seeing the world vs the old and more chaotic under the shadows ways. I enjoyed the more whimsical and somewhat not straight forward dirction this story takes.

The weakest part of the novel for me were the eventual reveal of magic in this world, and the way that the original story almost seemed to keep this one contained within a box of its own making. i felt like story just had to fit certain things and it just was not 100% as whimsiical I wanted. I mean the fudemental idea is somewhat they on drugs and doped down on meds and suh and see and experience things. So I wanted that feeling some more.

Well, plus there is also just it was not simmiar enough to the original.

I loved this book, but it's in the category of “I loved this piece of media but would never recommend it”. I understand people's distastes towards this book and why they might find it exploitative or a form of torture porn, though as a victim myself I didn't feel this was the case, it just felt very deeply dark and horrible and gripping. I fell in love with our protagonists and haven't rooted so hard against antagonists in a long while. The ending felt a bit too lacklustre/rushed for my tastes, but otherwise this retelling was exactly what I needed to get me out of my slump and I will be picking up the next book.

I loved every minute of this. Such an easy read it was so hard to put down, about 40 pages from the end I ordered the next two in this series! Thrilling, gritty and fantastical, it's very much the heavy metal version of Alice I needed in my life.

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.

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.

I have so many strong feelings about this book, and they're a mixed bag.

Overall, it was an extremely imaginative, dark retelling that added so much to the original story. That in itself can be so difficult to accomplish. In this version of the story, Alice escaped the clutches of the manipulative, abusive Rabbit 10 years ago, but she still suffers nightmares about her time down the rabbit hole. When a fire starts in the asylum where she's been locked up for years, she runs away into the city with her killer companion, Hatcher. They get wrapped up in a quest to rid their world of some of its most vile men—the Walrus, the Caterpillar, the Jabberwocky, and the Rabbit. These characters are the kings of a human trafficking ring, in which they kidnap and sell women and girls into sexual slavery.

And this is where we get into my issues with the book. By nature of the subject matter, there is a lot of rape. On page, off page, all of it difficult to read. That's not my issue, because I think overall, it was handled sensitively, and wasn't overly gratuitous (just to make the book seem ~darker~). But. Other than Alice, all of the women in the book were either there to be abused by horrible men, or to betray Alice, or both. Other than Alice, I don't think any woman in this book had more than 5 lines or any kind of agency. I wish that in a book focused on the atrocities forced upon women, the women had more of a role and a voice.

I also just really did not like Hatcher, and I don't think he added anything to the story. He came off as the “nice-guy” type, who only cares about a woman's fate if she's beautiful or somehow tied to him (wife, friend, daughter). I also hated that when he was around the prostitutes and other mostly-naked women, he could barely control himself. He's supposed to be the “good guy” of the story, and even HE can't think of anything but sex when around naked women—women he KNOWS have been kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery?? I absolutely hate the implication that even “good” men can't control themselves, that it's in their nature to go rabid when around a beautiful woman.

So, on the whole I did enjoy this for its creativity and general themes, but the feminism here felt like it should have been a little more modern for a book written in 2015.

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.

Interesting take on an old tale. I really enjoyed the writing style and light amount of gore.

This book was a weird experience from beginning to end. Story wise... well, it doesn't really have a great story. It's actually pretty simple and easy and fast solved so, really, it's not a book about the plot, but about its world. Wow. So disturbing, dark and gore. I was fascinated by it.

So, I don't know how I feel and I don't know if I would recommend it, but it was a good read for me.

Cheshire's fingers, cold and slightly damp, stroked down the scar on her cheek. She swallowed the shudder of revulsion at his touch.

“Yes,” Cheshire said. “He marked you so that he would know you again, and know that you belong to him.”

“I belong to no one,” Alice said.

This is my new fight song. I belong to no one. You better believe it. You do not own me. I may be small, and I may be weak, and I may be frightened, but I belong to no one. Without even knowing the complete context in which that is spoken in this book, doesn't it make you want to stand up and shout?

[b:Alice|23398606|Alice (The Chronicles of Alice, #1)|Christina Henry|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1416530621s/23398606.jpg|42955198] is my first [a:Christina Henry|3409936|Christina Henry|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1417722044p2/3409936.jpg] book. I already have the sequel, [b:Red Queen|27246122|Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice, #2)|Christina Henry|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1453056797s/27246122.jpg|47294674], on my bookshelf. I knew I was in it to win it by the time I finished the 3rd chapter of Alice, and so I put away the digital version I had of it, ordered both books, and waited until they arrived to finish. I really thought it might kill me, but it was well worth the wait. Thankfully, Alice doesn't end in a cliffhanger. The ending is definitely OPEN for future tales, but it's not one of those OMG WTF cliffhanger endings that seem to be par for the course for a lot of the books I've been reading lately. Phew.

Obviously, this is an Alice in Wonderland retelling. However, unlike most retellings of various stories I've read, I think you could enjoy this one even without knowing the original! Shocking! Raises the bar, I think. So many retellings depend on our love of the originals to carry over – and often, at least in my case, it does – and make us more accepting or forgiving to the new work.

The story is fairly graphic and sometimes disturbing in its depictions of violence, killing, rape, and abuse. It's creepy right out of the gate. The world of this Alice is definitely not ours, but it has enough resemblance to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Alice and her friend Hatcher have been locked away in an insane asylum for years, abused and neglected, barely kept alive – and not entirely sane or insane. Are they innocent? Maybe not entirely. Justified? You have to decide for yourself. I loved the complexity of their struggles, not only to find the Jabberwocky but to figure themselves out. I love Alice, her sheer will in the middle of circumstances that would bring most of us to our knees. I love that she and Hatch are there for each other even when they annoy the daylights out of each other, that when one is weak the other is strong. The best kind of partners. Neither perfect, both so very human and tortured by their own demons.

He [Hatcher] would not stand and argue with Alice when they did not agree, even if she wished to. And she did wish to.

Hatcher always had changeable moods...out here the world was bright and sharp and full of hungry mouths waiting to eat her up. She couldn't afford Hatcher's instability, and she wouldn't leave him either. They were bound together by love and need and other feelings she didn't entirely understand.

“I w-want to go h-home,” she said. Her tongue tasted like salt and roses.

“Where's home, my Alice?” Hatcher said. “Where's home? We don't have a home, you and I.”

“Then I want to go back to the hospital,” she said. “We were safe there. Nothing could hurt us...”

“Except the doctors,” Hatcher said...”Theres nowhere for us to go back to. We can go forward. We can find our way out.”

I have been burned by Alice retellings before and can say that the ones that do it RIGHT are the ones that are not afraid to stray from the source material and to recreate existing characters. Henry does that here. This almost feels original, and if it wasn't Alice in Wonderland at all-the world-building Henry did here would stand on its own. Gangs running the streets of an outer-city world. It almost plays out like a video game with a different boss to be beaten in turn.
Where the story dragged a touch for me was the constant road trip feel to it. I was tired of reading how tired Alice and Hatcher were. The garden maze went on for way too long.
There are oddities around every corner and the fact that Alice is kind of smacked ass is excusable because she was in an institution for a decade and never matured.
I will be reading Red Queen when it comes out!