maryconnors6 's review for:

Alice by Heart by Steven Sater

2.0

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I listened to the music of Alice by Heart on youtube and it was lovely, but wowsers this book was on drugs-- which in a way is fitting since Lewis Caroll was. I think this is a case of lost in translation of mediums from the stage to the page. Unlike a traditional play, in the case of musicals you can't directly cut the dialogue from the script and paste it into a book without missing a huge part of the story, since songs are used to further the narrative. Unfortunatley, it feels like that's what happened. The constant switch from fantasy to reality was jarring and somewhat unclear. There was so much going on at all times that I didn't connect with any of the characters. I could see how this format works in a musical, but as a novel it was all over the place. There were a few parts that were particularly frustrating and I never felt like there was any payoff for

Spoiler

Alice FINALLY getting to Alfred before he died. It drove me crazy how many times she almost reached him only to have the nurse would call her back... AGIAN. It happened so often it became annoying.

I wasn't a huge fan of the puberty plot line regarding Alice, nor the other characters role in emphasizing that theme. I could tell the author was using the story as a vessel to convey Alice growing up, confronting her feelings, and becoming a woman, in the way Lewis Caroll did with the original, but it was too on the mark and not very well done.

I would be interested in seeing the musical, but this book is a pass for me.