Keeping with the last posts theme of Alice in Wonderland
retellings, Insanity by Cameron Jace is another semi-well rated novel on
goodreads.com. I have very mixed feelings on the novel, when I first read it I
gave it 2-stars, but its one of those novels that makes you think. I have found
myself thinking about and ever talking about this book with friends.
Alice
Wonders is in a mental institution, she doesn’t remember anything before a few
weeks ago. Apparently though she is responsible for the death on all her
classmates, the final act that pushed her family and the courts to send her to
Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. Alice has been talking crazy for years though, ever
since her sister lost her one afternoon when she was seven. Everyone thinks
that Alice is crazy, but Alice knows that she isn’t. And there are others in
the institution, others who believe her, who know the truth. Monsters of
Wonderland are in the city, Lewis Carroll’s novels, while fanciful, are how he
dealt with his encounters with the monsters, and a way to play down what he and
a little girl actually had to do all those years ago to trap them in
Wonderland.
Now, people
are being killed and Alice and the patient dubbed “Professor Caterpillar” are
the only ones who believe (and know) that it is the Cheshire Cat, which means
if one monster has escaped Carroll’s enchantments, more will follow. And the
Cheshire Cat cannot be working alone, after all, he has never worked alone.
Alice and the Professor have to find a way to get out of the asylum and stop
Cheshire, but getting out isn’t the problem, its walking the fine line between
crazy and wonderland.
In
retrospect, I actually liked this novel a lot more now than I did when I first
read it, the ending was amazing! I mean, the last two pages, were awe inspiring.
It makes me want to not only read the sequel when it comes out, but read some
of Cameron Jace’s other fairytale retellings.
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