(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I’ve seen a few different versions of Alice in Wonderland and I thought this was quite an interesting version of the story. I liked the idea of the fairy tales being echoes from different worlds.
I found Alice an interesting character, though I wasn’t sure if I really liked her or not. I found it hard to see her as different to her first appearance, despite the fact that she’d grown up by ten years. She still seemed very immature and not emotionally healthy enough to have the romance that started towards the end of the book.
Seeing the contrast between the Wonderland Alice originally went to and the one she ended up in later was quite scary. It was sad to see the way the creatures of Wonderland were treated… and although Ace did make a good villain, it was difficult to see him as a balanced one.
I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the animals in Wonderland… but I liked seeing that there were still some aspects of Wonderland for at least part of the first half of the book. It was also good to see the Mat Hatter… though not so much towards the end.
I liked the way the different stories merged together in one universe. I felt a lot of sympathy for Pinocchio and it was nice to see the friendship he formed with Jimmy. I also liked seeing Peter and Alice interacting together as they learned that they were both from well-known stories.
I did like the fact that this book had a lot of tension in it and it wasn’t clear if the characters would survive or not. I didn’t really think much of the White Rabbit, but I could see how he’d become the way he was.
I would have liked a bit more explanation about how the echoes bled through to different times that were far outside the time periods both Alice and Peter were in, but I did think it was an interesting explanation for why certain things were different. It was also good to see Robin involved… and how he was connected to everything.
Although this book did clearly come to an end, I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future.
Ink of Blood 