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Mad About the Hatter
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
I received a free copy of this book to review from Netgalley.

Hatter has been kept prisoner in the red queens dungeons for longer than he can remember. Eventually the day has come, he has been summoned by the Queen herself what can only be for none the less a beheading as everyone knows this is her favourite pastime. To the Hatters amazement she is sparing his head by striking a deal that he can’t refuse (really he can’t refuse) by capturing ‘boy Alice’ – and returning him for a right old head lolloping.

‘Boy Alice’ is in fact Alice’s younger brother Henry(17). He has never believed Alice’s stories of wonderland and always thought she was attention seeking, for which they have never seen eye to eye.

All Henry remembers is Alice apologising after their recent altercation, handing him a glass of punch and telling him to find the Hatter!

Henry finds himself in a mysterious place of oversized flowers and a caterpillar sitting upon a mushroom that speaks in riddles – can it really be Wonderland? Was Alice really an attention seeking twit?.

When Hatter finds Henry they grow to like each other and try to figure a plan to get Henry back to his home but by doing so they have to cross some challenging areas within Wonderland such as the Neverglades and Drawrof, during this adventure the relationship between the Hatter and Henry blossom.

    "Rules are merely a fistful of conundrums, obstacles and barriers knotted and twisted together for the sole purpose of sucking the last bit of fun out of every experience"

I loved this book so much! The world-building was amazing that I felt like I was in Wonderland alongside the Hatter and Henry. Every section of Wonderland they crossed was so different from the last and every bit as magical.

The book is only 190 pages so a very fast and easy read. I liked that all the original characters were used and they all had the same traits as from Alice in Wonderland and that new creatures added and were blended in well.

The friendship between Henry and that Hatter was very sweet and heartwarming as they ventured on through the mystical lands and defied death, the feelings for one another become more than companions.

There were some particularly funny moments in the book that did make me laugh out loud as they were quite witty and there were still some essence of nonsense but not as much as Alice in Wonderland.

Alice to me was the only character that I didn’t really feel genuine, it felt a bit forced like she had to been in the book because it was based on Alice in Wonderland by C.S Lewis.

Nearing the end of the book there was a particular cheesy bit that I didn’t really like as it was a bit of a cliché but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I was sucked in to the magical world that was Wonderland!

I think there is definitely room for a sequel.

    "That’s the secret to Wonderland. Believing. It’s what fuels magic"

I would recommend this book for anyone that reads/likes Young Adult and Lite fantasy novels.

I have never read anything else by Dakota Chase, though she has other books published such as ‘Changing Jamie’ and ‘Monster Town’.

Overall I rate this 4 out of 5 stars
  
B(
Blackout (All Clear, #1)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Oh, Ms. Willis! I cannot believe you did this to me! A cliffhanger? After 512 many pages? And I hung in there SO long in the beginning, when the book was so slow to get going!

Seriously--during all that nattering about over changed schedules and finding drop sites I nearly screamed to just <b>get on with it already</b>! So it is absolutely ridiculous to find that after more than 500 pages, I am not a nice resolution to any of the various plot lines, but rather am referred to the next boook, [b:All Clear|7519231|All Clear (All Clear, #2)|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267552735s/7519231.jpg|9735628]!

It's a bloody good thing that I 1) really, really like Ms. Willis' work; and 2) already have <i>All Clear</i> on hand and ready to go, or I would have been sorely tempted, <b>sorely</b>, I say, to throw the book across the room. That isn't nearly so satisfying with ebooks, and tends to do absolutely nothing but damage one's hardware, so I imagine I would have refrained.

But I absolutely would not suggest this work to a first-time Willis reader. [b:To Say Nothing of the Dog|77773|To Say Nothing of the Dog|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298434745s/77773.jpg|696], certainly. [b:Bellwether|24985|Bellwether|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167544946s/24985.jpg|1194887], even more so. But not this one, and not [b:Doomsday Book|24983|Doomsday Book|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1287032661s/24983.jpg|2439628] or [b:Lincoln's Dreams|24980|Lincoln's Dreams|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167544943s/24980.jpg|25743] or, honestly, even [b:Fire Watch|10301442|Fire Watch|Connie Willis|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JNKi8g3aL._SL75_.jpg|2324159] (the story on which the <i>All Clear</i> duology is based).

Willis doesn't write simplistic stories, or I probably wouldn't enjoy her work so much, but she has a way of making the complex clear that's beautiful. It's just that these require a bit more desire to get there on the part of the reader, to my way of thinking, than the other two. And once one is seduced by those, it is clear that the effort is wholly worthwhile.

In any case, there's no doubt but that I'm going right on ahead to read [b:All Clear|7519231|All Clear (All Clear, #2)|Connie Willis|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267552735s/7519231.jpg|9735628]. I'm just a bit put out with the author at the moment--and very, very glad, considering the heft of these tomes, that I've switched to ebooks!

I still think that readers deserve some small reward for the sheer aggravation meted out thus far. Surely resolving some small plot issues would not have caused trouble? For instance, authors who are accustomed to working with multi-book series regularly wrap up some issues in each book, while leaving other, larger plot threads to carry over into future volumes to provide continuity.