ARC: Alice: The Wanderland Chronicles by J.M Sullivan

I received a free copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review. Alice: The Wanderland Chronicles is a fast paced read that I read in a single setting. It's basically Alice in Wonderland meets the Blood of Eden trilogy only without vampires and it's so good. More so than you might first expect. What I Liked So when it comes to Alice in Wonderland retellings one of the most important aspects is obviously the characterisation. I've read a fair few recently but this was one of the better for the portrayal of Alice. Yes, this is a more sarcastic and hardened version of Alice, she isn't as curious but in this world, she couldn't really be. She is, however, a bit of a daydreamer, she wanders perhaps more than she should and she cares so much for her sister. She was a great lead character and one you can connect with, even when she's kicking arse. Chess and Abbott were my other favourite characters, Chess is obviously the Cheshire Cat and Abbott is the white rabbit. Both are totally different characters and whilst Chess is fun and has you curious about what's going on with him, you just feel so sorry for poor Abbott. Another thing I have to talk about is the violence in it. This is a rather violent book, it's not too graphic but for once, the violence is at least semi-realistic. Sullivan talks about the momentum helping people cut through necks and things like that. Sometimes this violence isn't always completely believable but it's a lot more so than usual. I also liked the post-apocalyptic setting of this book, it focused on one city really but they don't claim to be the only city. It's just the one the story is focused on. With the setting, you're introduced the momerath, a form of zombies that come from a plague. Pretty common trope these days but still pretty interesting. This book was so close to a 5-star read but it wasn't quite perfect. What I Didn't Like The very few issues I had with this are that the fighting could get a little bit repetitive and that pulled me out of the book at little at times. I felt my attention fading but I got back into the book easily enough. And as much as I liked the world building there was, I felt like there could have been more on how the plague actually spread. You find out how it started but not how it moved from that point which is a little weird. I'm also sad that my favourite character wasn't the Mad Hatter for once but that's just me being awkward. There's very little actually bad and really I had to be a little picky there. This is a great post-apocalyptic retelling of Alice in Wonderland and I'll be excited to get the second book.

4/5 Stars