KatiEllenReads

“My insanity is my sanity. I am both, but I am one. If any of this makes sense.”

After being locked in an asylum for killing her friends in a bus crash and not remembering who she is, why she did it or anything before the asylum it's fair to say Alice Wonder starts to question her sanity when she is approached by fellow inmate Pillar to help hunt down and find Wonderland monsters. That's the premise of the first two books, Wonderland characters we know wreaking havoc on the streets of London leading to the impending Wonderland Wars.

I love the idea of this series, it takes the idea of the weird and wacky Wonderland we love and runs with it, full tilt crazy. The second book ended with Alice really starting to question things when she wakes up and discovers she paralysed and that the 'reality' she thought was real is really a figment of her imagination to escape the awful truth. She really did kill her friends and Wonderland and its monsters are a way for her to bury herself in her mind.

“The world is such a useless place, that’s all I can think of now. It’s full of hypocrites, liars, and selfish people.”

My biggest worry about this book was that we would still be left in the dark about a lot of our main characters past and what's to come. In the previous books, and this one Alice is constantly talked about like she's not there, people know about her and her past but won't tell her because she has to discover it for herself.  After realising that there are 8 books in the series I got a little worried how long it would be before we found out anything.

So, pros and cons, we got get a bit more information, although still focusing on the villain of the week story we get a first real look at how Wonderlanders came into our world and their motives, plus finally we get a glimpse into who Alice is. This book is told via multiple view points thank goodness because we learn more than Alice does. The biggest downside, there felt like endless filler chapters that felt very repetitive. Joe blogs is waiting for some big reveal, a chapter back to Alice and then back again to Joe Blogs and still nothing is really happening. I get wanting to build suspense and for the character to be emerged in the crazy atmosphere but it felt so unnecessary.

“Mad is beautiful,” I say. “It has its flaws, but when shared with the good-hearted it’s beautiful.”

This series still has some great potential and doesn't shy away from the madness, which really works in its favour. There is a lot of second guessing to be had, especially once the idea of her really being paralysed and in denial cropped up, but I feel like that plot thread is going to be under used and forgotten about. For me; it needs to cut the pointless two page chapters and get on with it. But despite that I still gave it 4 stars because I got about half way and suddenly found myself really gripped and wanted to keep reading on my lunch break.

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