Personal Rating: 2.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.98 Stars Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now. When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own. (goodreads.com) Well this book annoyed me. The characters, the writing, the complete lack of morals, the alarming love triangle - pretty much everything but the plot bothered me. Somehow, the story line turned out really well and I really wanted to find out what happened. If it weren’t for the captivating plot then I probably would have dropped this book after the first couple of chapters. There were a lot of clichés in this book such as: a love triangle, a mysterious supposedly attractive dude, a girl who is considered an outsider because she dresses differently, a mean girl who gets whatever she likes, and special magic powers. On top of that this book also had many inaccuracies in it. Alyssa’s mom is in a mental institution that kind of reminds me of Arkham Asylum from the Batman comics. It doesn’t seem like anyone in this place is actually getting better and the nurse even subjects Alyssa’s mom to a straight jacket and then stuffs her away in a padded cell. Um… they don’t really use straight jackets in hospitals anymore. I also didn’t think this book did a very good job of portraying mental illnesses in general. The MC of this story, Alyssa Gardner, is kind of a mess. I’m not sure if she’s emo or goth or punk or a skater girl or what. The book describes her original outfits in detail, which made me think of some of the stories I used to write when I was younger. I mean, the clothes your character is wearing are important, but you don’t need to describe every single outfit change. Alyssa also didn’t have that much going for her personality-wise. She’s kind of moody and overly-trusting in some situations. A lot of the time she’s cranky, but the things that would make a normal person peeved make her almost happy. Ultimately, I have to say that she’s a bit of a Mary Sue. The only way I could put up with her is by imagining her with a voice like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Then we have the two boys *insert enormous eyeroll here*. Jeb, Alyssa’s bestie and secret crush, started out kind of decent but I just started hating him somewhere in the book. I don’t like him or his stupid lip ring thing. He’s kind of the “I’m too cool” type and he’s good with cars, skateboards, art, emotions, inter-world travel, walrus-squid things, pretty much any situation you throw at him and he’s ready to go - unless that situation involves another dude and Alyssa because even though he won’t dump his girlfriend who he dislikes, he still doesn’t want Alyssa to date anyone else. Speaking of anyone else, there is also Morpheus, who I like to refer to as Cheeto-Emo-Man, or Cheeto-Emu-Moth-Man. Not sure why the word “cheeto” is in there… no wait! I remember. Cause he’s supposed to be the - minor spoiler - Caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and in the movie Despicable Me Agnes laments that her caterpillar never turned into a butterfly, to which Edith replies “that’s a cheeto”. Therefore, Morpheus is a cheeto and an emu since “emo” sounds like “emu”. But I digress. This guy, who supposedly smells like licorice (I don’t even know), is a creepy, creepy person. He’s just disturbing and that’s really all I can say without too many spoilers. Bleck. The quality that almost redeems this book is the plot, as I said, and I was really interested in how things turned out. There were some parts where I just had to put it down and then give it a break, but for the most part it held my attention. I liked how thought out it seemed and the twists in it. I also really liked that in the copy that I read the words were in purple ink. I kind of love colored ink. All together, not the worst book I’ve read this summer, but not really a great book either. I started to read the sequel (which has a terrifying cover - yikes), but I was busy reading other books and I had my driver’s ed class going on and it wasn’t really holding my interest so I returned it to the library but maybe I’ll pick up again at some point to see how things turn out. I was pretty satisfied with the way Splintered ended though, so I don’t really feel the need to start reading this series again. What are your thoughts on this book? Have you read it? Do you plan to? Do you like Wonderland books or retelling books in general? I’d love to hear what you think! Leave me a comment or a suggestion or a question or anything! I’m late, I’m late, for a very important… snack time, I guess. Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12558285-splintered?ac=1&from_search=true
1 Comment
Kirsten
7/28/2016 08:51:00 am
You know you've done your job when the review is more interesting than (I imagine) the book itself! ;)
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