One of my favorite books when I was a kid was Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass. I remember my mother trying to dissuade me from reading it. It's not that she tried to censor our reading, so she would never forbid me from reading it, it's just that it was one book she couldn't get through. All the "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" and shrinking and growing and telescoping necks... She just preferred her books more reality based. But when I saw Christina Henry's Alice, I knew it was something I was going to have to check out, moreso because the reviews for it seemed to be all over the place.
The premise for the book comes across as a sequel. Alice, now 26, has been locked away in an asylum. She doesn't recall why she's there; all she can vaguely remember is "...a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood..." Her family no longer visits, and the only companion she has is the man in the next cell, a man named Hatch, and they communicate through a mouse hole in the wall between the two cells. When I fire breaks out at the hospital, Alice and Hatch escape, but so does the fearsome, nightmarish creature called the Jabberwock, to which Hatch has some kind of weird connection. And thus the adventures through Old City begin, as they search for the only weapon that can destroy the Jabberwock. Their adventure eventually leads to a long past due confrontation between Alice and The Rabbit, a crime boss responsible for scarring Alice's face, and finally a showdown with the Jabberwock.
The thing that strikes me after reading the reviews is so many people see this as a reimaging or a retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. What they seem to so obviously miss is this is intended/presented as a sequel, and as such, you expect to meet a lot of familiar characters. And you do. In name only. For folk familiar with Alice's story, this is how we remember the Cheshire Cat.
And if you only know the story through the Disney adaptation, he's a purplish cat with an ear-to-ear grin. In Christina Henry's sequel, Cheshire is a man, whose symbol is a cat. Likewise The Walrus, The Carpenter, The Caterpillar, and The Rabbit. They're all men. So imagine my disappointment when I encountered all these "creatures" in Alice. As a retelling/reimaging that draws inspiration from Carroll's masterpiece, I would find this acceptable. But as a SEQUEL? Absolutely not. And thus the dilemma. How to rate Christina Henry's book...
On a personal level, I HATED it. I know HATE is a strong word, but I can't help feeling that the author and publisher intentionally misled potential readers into what to expect. Did they expect those of us who went in expecting to be reunited with familiar characters to just shrug aside our disappointment once we got involved in the book and found out we were lied to? Not gonna happen. BUT...
Is it a bad book? No. It's just not what I expected going in. As a reimaging/retelling, I feel it's rather creative and intriguing. BUT if it was meant as a reimaging of Carroll's novel, then it should have started at the beginning, with Alice's first adventure through Old City (Wonderland), all the initial encounters, the betrayals, and not years afterward.
And this is where I wish I could dual star this one. Personally, for me (and most reviews/ratings are done on a personal level), it's a 1-star read, but objectively, I'd give it 4 stars. So take it from there.
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