By Christina Henry

So this is a book that I added to the schedule. Originally, I was going to review the Running Man and the two movies. But trying to get your hands on a movie that came out last year is a bit too pricy.

If you are interested in helping me when it comes to finding movies to review, then you can donate at the link on the home page.

Here is a bit of housekeeping. I will be reviewing Alice, Red Queen and finally Looking Glass.

“In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City stands a hospital with cinder-block walls that echo the screams of the poor souls inside.

In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place- just a tea party long ago, and long ears and blood…

Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the women a chance to escape. She tumbles out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.

Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.

And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the Rabbit waits for his Alice.”

This book was an intriguing read. When I first picked it up, I had trouble putting it down. Before I go on, there is a warning I need to give. This book has a main character who was trafficked and raped; there are many people we see who sell and buy girls. Both of those themes run as an undercurrent throughout this book like a heartbeat under a bruise. This is not like Circe, where I can tell you what chapter to avoid. You never see it explicitly described, but still be aware.

For this novel, I have three thoughts.

Firstly, the depictions of asylums. This book is clearly based on Victorian London, even if it’s only called the City. We see two different people who are trapped in the asylum: Alice and Hacher. Now, Hacher is in there because of the murders he committed in a violent rage, and Alice is there because of her lost memories from her journey into the Old City. Now I’m not saying that these two don’t need help. But where they are is clearly a place to keep them contained rather than rehabilitate, especially in the case of Alice. While in the beginning there is reference to seeing her parents and them saying that she will come home when she gets better, it is clear that they are lying. That is because she strayed from the path and was no longer their perfect little girl. Just like in Victorian London, where women could be sent to an asylum for any reason that men in their lives could come up with to put them away. Also, the idea that Alice is really mad, based on the line “we’re all mad here,” from the book feels a little bit overused.

Secondly, textual intervention. This is when a writer takes a piece of fiction that is in the public domain and changes it into something else. We have seen this in the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters but they both follow strictly to the plot of the book they are based on. This is a completely different version of textual intervention because this novel does what I like to call a snow globe method of writing. By this I mean they have taken a lot of the characters from Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass and shook them up before fitting them into a new story. This story has taken other things from the books that get twisted; an example of this is when we hear about the Walrus, who is rumoured to eat girls, which sounds crazy until we remember the story that says that the Walrus ate most of the oysters, because in this book everyone that was an animal is now a human, which makes everything worse.

Thirdly, standing up to your monsters. Throughout the book, there are three people Alice is terrified of and never wants to meet. The Rabbit who raped her, the Walrus who likes to eat and rape girls and the Jabberwocky who kills every person he comes across. Unfortunately, on Alice’s journey, she meets all of them, and in two instances, the fact that she is not scared of them puts them on the back foot, and the other one is completely broken. I enjoy that we have a character who was so broken, she can face her monsters and defeat them.

Thank you for joining me; it was interesting to look into such a dark story, and until next week.

Happy reading to all and to all a good night.