Week 20 Review: Off With Their Heads

From Goodreads:

Fans of Chloe Gong and Judy I. Lin will devour this Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland retelling about two very wicked girls, forever bonded by blood and betrayal . . .

In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it's been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn't commit—and four years since they shattered one another's hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.

Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro's betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.

But there's a secret about the Saints the Queen's been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other…

Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta—author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers —takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.

My Review:
This was a really fantastic read! It was strange and pretty crazy, and didn't quite make logical sense, but it's inspired by Alice in Wonderland, which doesn't have much to do with logic, thank you very much, it seems. I had a blast reading it! Like Caro, who is just a bit mad, but has heaps of self love and self confidence, which was fantastic and weird to read, the way her mind worked! 

This world of Wonderland and Saints, and witches and Jabberwockies, was just so interesting. That they worship bits and pieces of life, like Dark, or Quiet, and in the set up of this world, there were witches that worshiped disease, and would spread plagues. Which lead to saints gaining more power-until they went insane, and mutated and weren't really human anymore, but were drawn to the worst of humanity, after getting rid of the plague riders, now are drawn in to destroy things like grief, and murderers. And when Cara and Alice's 3rd member of their triad, Tecca, is killed, and when they thought she was dead, her body got touched by their magic, but it turns out that she died later, meaning that they have the death trace on them, it changes their lives and has them unfairly sent to Wonderland. 

Caro and Alice were very much in love before they lost Tecca. Being in Wonderland, it changed them and we got to see that from the past, and the present, where they violently hate each other. That Caro works for the White Queen, and Alice wants her dead, made the situation even more complicated. 

Playing with the timeline was a past time for this book. We got parts of Caro and Alice's past, and their present, and as the book went on, the same for Hattie, to get a fuller picture of what was going on. It helped that each chapter would say the date, as well as how many remaining Saints there were, which helped orient where it took place in the timeline and once restarted a chapter to clarify a plot point, which was really clever!

I don't quite understand the ending, with Hattie's plan to get rid of the saints (does that include her now that she's one, as well?) I missed a few things with the audiobook, to the point where I reread the beginning, because I didn't understand much and knowing that it was going between the two perspectives took a minute and then a reread to catch what I missed. But I also seemed to have a difficult time with the audiobook, that it would play when I didn't have a headphone in, which is either the phone or the headphones fault for playing it, but it made it a bit more confusing then it could've been, on top of the wildness of the book itself. So I'm not sure if the understanding I want is in the book or not.

This was such a fantastic read and I can't wait to read more by Zoe Hana Mikuta! 

Author: Zoe Hana Mikuta
Read: May 17th, 2024 
Source: Bought/Library 
Reason Why: Love her writing, and it's a 2024 Retelling Reading Challenge, SAC 2024 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Disney Hyperion 
Published: April 23rd 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars