A review by anastasia_sherman
Unbirthday by Liz Braswell

dark slow-paced

3.0

"I'm Alice!" she cried. "Always and forever Alice!"

I wanted to love this book so much, it's Alice in Wonderland related after all,  in fact, this feels like a sequel to the 1951 Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
Alice is all grown up now, and Wonderland finds her again, because Wonderland is in trouble and needs her.
However, this time around, Alice not only need to save Wonderland, but she has to save certain things in her own world too.

This novel alternates between Alice being in England, to Wonderland, back to England, and then Wonderland, and finally England again. It's supposed to be a fun read, but it felt draggy somehow, and I'm struggling to love this book.

Personally, I felt like this book focuses more on the plot of her real world problem, rather than the one in Wonderland, hence the title didn't make sense to me, it felt out of place.

Her real world problem is that certain parts of society in England are xenophobic, and wanted the immigrants gone, while Alice tries her best to save those people and children she knows from being targeted by hate politics.

While in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts wanted to destroy Wonderland by bringing forward the end of Time, after she has collected all of the toys in Wonderland. The plot for Wonderland wasn't solid enough, it felt too trivial, and I was a little disappointed by this. I picked up this book to be intrigued and awed by Wonderland yet again, but unfortunately I did not.

Although, there were mentions of our beloved characters, the famous ones like Queen of Hearts, Hatter, Cheshire Cat, the Dodo bird, and also the more obscure ones like Broom dog, Momeraths, Shovel birds, and that lizard Bill.

However, I couldn't give this more than three star ratings, as much as I wanted to love this, it felt short.

"Remember, time is always on your side. Or your wrist, in fact, if you're wearing a watch."