Week 8 Review: Unbirthday

From Goodreads:

What if Wonderland was in peril and Alice was very, very late?

Alice is different than other eighteen-year-old ladies in Kexford, which is perfectly fine with her. She'd rather spend golden afternoons with her trusty camera or in her aunt Vivian's lively salon, ignoring her sister's wishes that she stop all that "nonsense" and become a "respectable" member of society. Alice is happy to meander to Miss. Yao's teashop or to visit the children playing in the Square. She's also interested in learning more about the young lawyer she met there, but just because she's curious, of course, not because he was sweet and charming.

But when Alice develops photographs she has recently taken about town, familiar faces of old suddenly appear in the place of her actual subjects--the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar. There's something eerily off about them, even for Wonderland creatures. And as Alice develops a self-portrait, she finds the most disturbing image of all--a badly injured dark-haired girl asking for Alice's help. Mary Ann.

Returning to the place of nonsense from her childhood, Alice finds herself on a mission to stop the Queen of Hearts' tyrannical rule and to find her place in both worlds. But will she able to do so ... before the End of Time?

My Review:
Oh, this was a fun book to read! I've never read the Lewis Carroll books, and if I've seen the Disney movie, it was either forever ago or only snippets, because all I know of the original is more the memes around it, the things that have leaked into the common social knowledge. 

Alice is all grown up now, pretty much, with her own interests. I really enjoyed that time that we spent in our world at the beginning, setting up the politics of this town, and who Alice is as a person. It felt very full circle at the end! We did go back and forth between our world and Wonderland, and I enjoyed how they were tied into each other! 

It was interesting, that the Queen of Hearts-and the White Rabbit-were the bad guys. I mean, of course the Queen of Hearts, she's the one that wants to decapitate everyone. But the White Rabbit, as far as I can tell, was more of an underling, not a bad guy, so I really enjoyed that twist!

The thing about Alice is that she has a bit of nonsense to not fit into our world, and too much sense to fit into Wonderland. That her place is in part of both worlds. So I really enjoyed that, of Alice finding out who she was!

Loved that ending, both in Wonderland, and in our world. Alice had to be smart and creative, and I really enjoyed how things worked out. I especially loved the epilogue, where it answered our 3 main questions! 

I had a great time reading this book, and I can't wait to read the next Twisted Tales book! I've almost caught up, yeah! 

Author: Liz Braswell 
Series: Twisted Tales #10
Read: February 23rd, 2022
Source: NetGalley
Reason Why: Love her writing and this series, and it's a 2022 Retelling Reading Challenge Book and a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2022 Book! 
Publisher: Disney
Published: September 1st 2020

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

/5 Stars