Alice in Deadland

What started out promising and interesting quickly turned stupid and ill thought out. The concept is a fun one, Alice in Wonderland but with zombies. That's how the book was sold, it's what the goodreads synopsis says, what's on the back of the novel and what the positive reviews write. It couldn't be more wrong. 

It does start out that way though. It's post apocalyptical, Alice has never known any world but the zombie infested or "biter" world than this. She was born shortly after the world fell apart and has trained since her birth to stay alive and shoot "biters" in the head, only way to kill them. 

One day while on gaurd duty she sees a biter with crazy bunny ears jump into a hole and out of site from her rifle. Ignoring all her training and instincts, she follows the bunny eared biter into the hole. See the forced similarity to the original story? It's basically forcing it down the readers throat! Once she is down the hole. She finds herself surrounded by biters, but rather than kill her they being her to their Queen. 

The Queen has with her a copy of Alice and Wonderland, and tries to convince Alice it is a book of prophesy. The Queen believes that humans and the biters can live I. Harmony, and that Alice is the key to peace on Earth once more. 

If the novel wasn't horrible enough at this point, it gets worse!  Alice and the biters head back to her camp, but Zeus a military camp headed by a mix of old world commanders wants the biters killed. Alice now believes that this whole new world was orchestrated years before her birth by an old Chinese government to rid the world of undesirables and start a more evolved one. 

This novel explains little, leaving plot holes and unanswered questions. No, I will not be reading the rest of the series even though they were purchased in a set with the first. Please save yourself the trouble, time and money and don't read this book. 

Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

Cress was locked away in a satellite orbiting Earth, she could hardly remember a time when she wasn’t there. She was a Lunar shell, but rather than have her killed Queen Levana and her trusted advisor Sybil put her away in a satellite orbiting Earth, the planet they hoped to one day soon over take. Cress was in charge of watching the Earthen newsfeeds for information, watching the leaders of the world for weaknesses, for making the Lunar spaceships around the Earth undetectable to any other satellites. It was Cress’ job to spy on Earth, keep the Lunar ship movements undetectable, and report any and all findings to her Queen. Unfortunately for Levana, Cress started to betray her.

Alone, with no one to talk to and with the knowledge that her queen almost killed her, not to mention knowing everything evil that Levana was doing Cress started to rebel. She did her duties aboard the satellite, but when Cinder (the true queen of Luna) was being hunted by all of Luna, and by Earth under threat of annihilation, Cress hid her the way she had been hiding Lunar spaceships for years.

When Cinder and her friends learn of this, they contact Cress and plan on rescuing her from her satellite prison, but they are to slow. Sybil intercepts the message and is waiting for them aboard Cress’ satellite. Just like the evil witch in Rapunzel. Sybil captures Scarlet and heads back to Luna, hoping to use lunar methods of torcher to get the information on Cinder and her plan to over throw the current crown. Before she leaves for Luna though, Sybil blinds the hero Carswell Thorne who was the one on the podship sent to retrieve Cress. The two are left in the satellite as Sybil sets its coordinates to fall out of the sky and toward Earth.

Cinder, the true hero and main character of this story is at a loss. Everyone she had been counting on to help her is hurt, wounded, dead, or captured. She too has barely escaped with her life, and the only person with her is a mortally hurt Wolf. The only thing she can think to do is head to Africa, where the crazy Luna doctor lives in secret. A doctor who has helped Cinder many times in her life, and the man who reveled her true identity and saved her as a baby.

Would you believe that this isn’t even the first half of the novel? That is how amazing this third installment of the Lunar Chronicles is. I love the characters, the way each book introduces different characters and themes of popular fairytales, without over doing it or forcing the story to follow the original fairytale. I loved this book, and couldn’t put it down. The 550 pages seemed to fly by as I read it. Cannot wait for the next novel to come out next year!

The Wide Awake Princess (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty)

            While fairy tale retellings written by people like Gregory Maguire and GThe Wide Awake Princess.

ail Carson Levine are written for adults, or at least a slightly more mature audience, there is something amazingly wonderful and almost Disney like about most of the retellings. Often written at the middle grade level, they are quick and easy one sit reads, and sometimes that is exactly what I want. Such was the case when I read

            I got this book on my kindle coming off of my Alice in Wonderland retelling high, in fact I think I bought some ten new books, all retellings after reading Death of the Mad Hatter. This is a twist on the Sleeping Beauty tale, only the main character isn’t Sleeping Beauty, or anyone from the classis tale, but rather her younger sister Gwen. After the magical bestowing on Annie (Sleeping Beauty), the King and Queen were worried that their new daughter would have a similar fate of sleep and death put upon her. Hearing their worry, the Blue Fairy gave Gwen the one and only magical gift she could ever have, the curse/blessing of being impervious to magic.

            Gwen grew up normal, with normal qualities. She did not have charm, beauty or grace granted upon her, but more than that, when ever someone who had been given a magical blessing (or curse) was around Gwen their charms would start to fade. This made Gwen an outcast in the royal court, but handy around the guards, cooks, and their children who never had gifts. Gwen was able to stop evil witches and sorceresses who attempted to attack the castle, and with the prophesy of Gwen’s 16^th birthday sleep near, Gwen made numerous rounds with the palace guards.

Of course, no matter how much time Gwen spent with the guards and away from her family (because no one wanted their beauty, age, charm, etc to fade) no one can change destiny. When the castle falls under the spell of sleep, Gwen sets out to find the one true prince to kiss her sister and awaken the kingdom. But who will it be? As Gwen travels with one of the palace guards who was making rounds in the village when the spell went into effect, they collect an interesting string of princes all hoping to deliver the perfect kiss of true love. Will it be Digby, the self-centered neighboring prince who Gwen had a childhood crush on? Andreas who loves to play games and make people (especially proper princesses and noble) uncomfortable, the bear who claims to be a prince under a spell, or maybe someone living in secrets and lies of his own making.

Gwen not only is on a mission to save her sister and the kingdom, but find herself along the way. Although, she is so focused on her mission she misses the hints and clues the seemingly simple guard keeps dropping. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a quick read, an adventure staring a strong minded female character, Sleeping Beauty, magic, and of course retellings of classic tales.

Tale Spins: retellings of popular fairy tales

I love fairy tale retellings, but I hate short story compilations. I know, I know, I always say that I’m going to stop reading them, but they are usually cheap on amazon and I get caught up in the price and the the genre. Tale Spins complies a few short stories, retellings of famous fairy tales, but with a modern type twist, or in certain places a side of the story that you might not have heard.

Snow White for instance, did you know that there were actually eight dwarfs? The one that is left out of the fairy tale named Creepy. The other dwarfs locked him in the basement because he was, well creepy. Written in verse, this shows the seven dwarfs as rude and self centered men who only look out for their own self interests. Creepy in fact is able to wake up the beautiful made the first two times the evil witch comes, but being locked in the basement is unable to kiss her away.

The second story is a retelling of the frog prince. A princess is being bullied at school and decides to seek out a witch to help her. Of course, she just agrees to the witch’s demands, signing her name without actually reading the contract. Then trying to pull a fast one on the witch, Princess Penny tries to steal from the witch, but of course that never works out well. If it wasn’t for the kindness of an enchanted creature, Penny would have been lost for all time.

The third story was actually my favorite. It was dark and sinister, a retelling of Jack and the beanstalk. Only this story has Jack as a young street kid who robs a wealthy doctor who lives in a penthouse. The journey of the doctor trying to catch Jack leads them both down a dark and dangerous, yet magical journey until the unexpected end.

I would love an actual full novel of Jack’d, that is how good I thought that third story is.

Insanity (An Alice in Wonderland Retelling) by Cameron Jace

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.