The Looking Glass Wars

Quotes

Genre

• Fantasy
• Young Adult
• Retelling
• Adventure
• Steampunk
• Magic

Trigger Warnings

• Violence
• Parental Death
• Weight Shaming

*There may be spoilers in this review. I will try to avoid major spoilers but some need to be brought up to be discussed.

Summary

Alyss of Wonderland?
When Alyss Heart, newly orphaned heir to the Wonderland throne, flees through the Pool of Tears to escape her murderous Aunt Redd, she finds herself lost and alone in Victorian London. Befriended by an aspiring author named Lewis Carrol, Alyss tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life. Alyss trusts this author to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere will find her and bring her home. But he gets the story all wrong. He even spells her name incorrectly!

Fortunately, Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan knows all too well the awful truth of Alyss’ story – and he’s searching every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland, to battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

Characters

• Alyss Heart – Princess of Wonderland
• Dodge Anders – Son of Sir Justice Anders and is friend to the princess
• Hatter Maddigan – body guard to the queen of Wonderland
• Genevieve Heart – Queen of Wonderland.
• Nolan Heart – Genevieve’s husbands
• Redd – Banished sister of the queen, a practitioner of dark imagination.
• The Cat – Assassin for Redd
• Jack of Diamonds – Two faced noble playing both sides to stay ahead.
• Bibiwitt Hartt – tutor to the Heart Family
• Generals Doppel & Ganger – Generals of the Heart army.
• The Liddels – Alyss’s adoptive family

Setting

Wonderland and 19th century England

Overview

It was… ok.

There were some really cool concepts and I found myself wondering how no one has attempted to make a film version of this somehow some way. This just feels like Netflix content to be honest. It was imaginative and a very different take on the classic novel. As far as retellings go it was a cool concept for Alice in Wonderland but it did kind of dismiss the book itself as ridiculous and a paltry imitation. Fans of the original could be upset by that.

I didn’t dislike it but I wasn’t in love with it. It fast forwarded through things that I felt audiences would have enjoyed learning about.

Pros

The world felt large and creative. It had the elements to make it feel like Wonderland. We don’t get to spend as much time in this volume but I want to know more and that is usually a good thing.

Hatter. Hatter Maddigan is probably my favorite from the whole book. He had a whole Butler from Artemis Fowl vibe going on and I just really like the strong silent type. He was sharp he was deadly and he was determined. It’s one of my favorite combos.

The imagination magic system was creative and different that really worked with the Wonderland vibe. I felt like it was a bit too OP of a system especially since there is a difference in power levels in individuals but it is Wonderland so it still kind of works.

Cons

There were a few things that gave it the dated feel. The fat jokes kinda fell a little flat. It got a little old hearing just how fat Jack of Diamonds was.

The writing style had me on the fence. I put it here because I feel like it didn’t hold up as well reading it as an adult. It was a very simplistic writing style with a very modern tone. It works fine honestly but I think I appreciated it more as a kid. I found myself skimming through it in this read through.

It makes sense what with Through the Looking Glass that there would be world hopping but we want to be in Wonderland not running from it. I appreciated the character building that Alyss went through but I missed Wonderland.

It was pretty fast paced and sometimes it threw off the rhythm of the story. There was a lot of action packed into sometimes very small windows of time. Again, I think this would work really well in a visual medium but reading it I had to double back and make sure I read things right the first time through.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t hate it. The world was interesting and very visual but I feel like my understanding of it is still pretty shallow. I am going to read Seeing Redd so there might be more there to fill in the gaps there.

I feel like with the writing style it works well for the younger audiences. It still worked but I remember enjoying it more as a kid.

Hatter Maddigan was still the coolest with his hat of death.

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