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Sunday, September 6, 2015

Wonderland by Robert McKay

Wonderland by Robert McKay
Publisher: McKay Manor
Publication: August 20th, 2015
Pages: 300
Song I Played While Reading: Fire N Gold by Bea Miller
Rating: 4 stars

   Teenage Alice didn’t mean to end up on Wonderland, but the living spaceship she commandeered had other plans, and he was very late.
   Abandoned on an unfamiliar planet, Alice’s first day as a space pirate has fallen into madness. Caterpillars? Mad hatters? A Jabberwock? A queen known for chopping off heads? Alice must face all Wonderland can throw at her if she’s to take back possession of The White Rabbit and leave Wonderland in one piece.
 




I'd like to thank Robert McKay for providing me this copy in exchange for an honest review. 

If I was as fearless and spunky as Alice was when I was 13, my life would have turned out MUCH more differently. I was hesitant at first to read this since, let's face it, some 13-year-olds are are awful. Either they're spineless and go along with what everyone else is doing (like I was), or they're brash and don't think through any of their actions. 
Luckily, Alice was an absolute joy to read from. She was smart, thoughtful, brave, and fun. All of the characters in this story were! I've seen Alice in Wonderland, and was pleased to see Dee and Dum, The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts, The White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the caterpillar. There were some other characters that I wasn't sure were in the original story, but I really enjoyed them too. They balanced out the book wonderfully and I was surprised to find myself feeling all the feels; anger, happiness, sadness, shock. I even teared up a little!
The writing was very simple and straightforward, easy to read. I loved the fighting scenes in here. Snicker-Snack (which I still picture as a candy bar in my head) was the coolest sword out there and I want my own. The action scenes were incredible and fully detailed and long. If theres one thing I love about fight scenes, it's long fight scenes. And the way McKay wrote it with Snicker-Snack was so damn cool. It was gory, but not too gory, with plenty of kick-ass moves that had me yearning to pick up my own sword and take action.
I really didn't know what to expect of Wonderland, but I was surprised at the hidden amount of sexual content. Wonderland definitely had a dark side, and I actually really liked it. Along with my worries over Alice being an immature 13-year-old, I believed the overall tone of the book would be more lighter, and for a younger crowd. But I was happily surprised with it's aim towards an older feel, with the intense fighting scenes, clubs, woman, and some hidden violent actions. I feel like I'm making this out to sound like it's some gory, sex-filled book, which it's not at all. It's a regular YA book, so if anyone was worried about the juvenile level, I'm here to say you're in the clear to read this!
Overall, this was a really fun book, and I cannot wait to see what other adventures McKay sends Alice & Co. on in the next book!

Quotes
""That sounds impossible," said the hatter. "We absolutely must give it a try!"

""The caterpillar loves rare things," said Lyla. "Maybe that's why he's taken an interest in you."
Alice blushed and tilted her head down to look at Dum's shirt between her knees. "I'm just a girl."
"Well," said Lyla, "no, 'just a girl' I know has left her home planet, stolen from the queen, cut off one of her guest's hands, and gotten shrunk down to mouse size all in a course of a day."
"But most of those are things that happened. They don't really make me rare or special."
"Life just happens, Alice. What makes us special is how we react to it."

"Just one more, she kept telling herself. They aren't endless. Eventually you will have killed them all and you'll have to figure out how to fly the ship with only a rodent and a mutated dog for crew. That thought brought about a wild fit of laughter which scared off a few of the lower ranking cards. Nobody could blame them; a girl sitting on the ground, covered in blood and dicing up enemy after enemy while howling with laughter was a disturbing sight."

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