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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not a terrible fairytale, but not something I would read again.
“ I don’t buy it, you seem like one of the good ones”
WTF
WTF
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was poorly paced with an incredibly slow beginning and sort of fast paced end, written mainly in metaphors that I skimmed through because they were arbitrary and contributed nothing other than the vague sense of fairytale-ness, and has a very interesting premise with poor execution.
I found myself lacking any connection to any of the characters because they lacked depth. Alice was cold and unnecessarily bitchy and when she gets called out she doesn’t grow as a person and take responsibility for her actions and Finch was a hipster who needed to inject pretentiousness into his veins to function. I understand why Alice seems to be stagnant by the end of the book but you really shouldn’t try to explain away why your character isn’t growing. She’s supposed to be struggling with her humanity...show that not this flat character. With Finch I feel like there really was a missed opportunity. He was a main character of color in this story and brings up racial profiling and Alice snubs him by saying he’s too rich to deal with race issues. He felt very one dimensional and under developed and so am so glad that this book didn’t center around his romance with her because even though he’s pretentious he deserves better.
I thought the setting was decent in the second half of the book but a lot of it felt nonsensical like Alice in Wonderland for no reason. There was no real setup for this place because it wasn’t even supposed to be real to begin with and the audience and Alice only knew the name of it.
The one thing I really enjoyed was the dark fairytales. The two stories we get are MUCH better than any of the books main storyline. They were creepy and written in such a cool old style it felt like I was being watched while reading them and if I put the book down I would find it had disappeared when I looked back for it. It was one of the shining moments of this book where I got a fresh look at fairytales told in a cool style with no happy ending. It’s a warning and the other side of the coin for the light and pretty and sparkly tales we are told as children. They’re chilling and full of life. I really wish this book was The Tales of the Hinterlands instead of this angsty Alice in Wonderland bull crap.
Overall, I think a lot of this story lacked drive and purpose and even when you got to the climax and the falling action you still were left wondering what the point of any of it is. It had a really chilling dark fairytale element that I wish was brought up more to give us an idea of what the hell was going on and to give us something more than dull characters and a lackluster plot.
I found myself lacking any connection to any of the characters because they lacked depth. Alice was cold and unnecessarily bitchy and when she gets called out she doesn’t grow as a person and take responsibility for her actions and Finch was a hipster who needed to inject pretentiousness into his veins to function. I understand why Alice seems to be stagnant by the end of the book but you really shouldn’t try to explain away why your character isn’t growing. She’s supposed to be struggling with her humanity...show that not this flat character. With Finch I feel like there really was a missed opportunity. He was a main character of color in this story and brings up racial profiling and Alice snubs him by saying he’s too rich to deal with race issues. He felt very one dimensional and under developed and so am so glad that this book didn’t center around his romance with her because even though he’s pretentious he deserves better.
I thought the setting was decent in the second half of the book but a lot of it felt nonsensical like Alice in Wonderland for no reason. There was no real setup for this place because it wasn’t even supposed to be real to begin with and the audience and Alice only knew the name of it.
The one thing I really enjoyed was the dark fairytales. The two stories we get are MUCH better than any of the books main storyline. They were creepy and written in such a cool old style it felt like I was being watched while reading them and if I put the book down I would find it had disappeared when I looked back for it. It was one of the shining moments of this book where I got a fresh look at fairytales told in a cool style with no happy ending. It’s a warning and the other side of the coin for the light and pretty and sparkly tales we are told as children. They’re chilling and full of life. I really wish this book was The Tales of the Hinterlands instead of this angsty Alice in Wonderland bull crap.
Overall, I think a lot of this story lacked drive and purpose and even when you got to the climax and the falling action you still were left wondering what the point of any of it is. It had a really chilling dark fairytale element that I wish was brought up more to give us an idea of what the hell was going on and to give us something more than dull characters and a lackluster plot.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
3.5 of 5
I started reading this because I had high expectations with the book but with the pace of the story I couldn’t get into till chapter 6, there’s a plot that is craving to be big and well done, Melissa has a good story in her hands to write in a big and interesting way but failed in a mix of simple characters and a weirds scenes that make the reader not to be able to finish (In my case of course) Alice’s attitude is what make me hard to keep it reading and I was hoping so much to the story be better in some point but after chapter 25 my optimism of the book to be better die totally. Finch is a character which I was truly hoping to make it thru and Ella (Which is Alice mom) is another character that I rescue from the mess. I think the story could be better and had great moments but the rest it was kind of hard. Now come with the place of Hinterland in which is not explained very well and in just rush way in Finch’s way. Please, this is my opinion and it doesn’t mean that you won’t have to read it, you can and probably fall in love with the book but for me is a no-no.
I started reading this because I had high expectations with the book but with the pace of the story I couldn’t get into till chapter 6, there’s a plot that is craving to be big and well done, Melissa has a good story in her hands to write in a big and interesting way but failed in a mix of simple characters and a weirds scenes that make the reader not to be able to finish (In my case of course) Alice’s attitude is what make me hard to keep it reading and I was hoping so much to the story be better in some point but after chapter 25 my optimism of the book to be better die totally. Finch is a character which I was truly hoping to make it thru and Ella (Which is Alice mom) is another character that I rescue from the mess. I think the story could be better and had great moments but the rest it was kind of hard. Now come with the place of Hinterland in which is not explained very well and in just rush way in Finch’s way. Please, this is my opinion and it doesn’t mean that you won’t have to read it, you can and probably fall in love with the book but for me is a no-no.