A review by sabrina93
Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 
 
I gave this book 3 stars. Here's the thing, I love detective stories. I love watching detectives come to a new town and try to gain the townspeople's trust. This woman cared about the missing boys as soon as she heard about them. Vanessa was a great character and a great detective. She was honestly my favorite character other than the mechanic dad we meet later. She was able to gain the respect of the townspeople and she kept her promises to help them find out what happened to their kids. She was quick to point out the bias that the higher-ups had for the park and its employees. She got pissed when she found out that there was hardly any investigation involved with the boys who went missing. And that everything was covered up. Vanessa dealt with the deception and corruption of this town like a pro, in my opinion. 
But there was a lot that I didn't like about this book. First, I hate the trope where the main character sleeps with a guy and it turned out he was one of the "bad guys" all along. No, Oz wasn't the main big bad, but he was part of the cover and he deserved to go to prison. I was ok with Oz and Vanessa being together at first, but the more I learned about Oz, the more I thought (or wished) that he would go away. He wasn’t a good person and he cared more about hitting on a detective than finding out what happened with the missing boys. I’m also confused with the fact that Vanessa sleeping with one of the suspects never came up with the chief of police. 
As a matter of fact, the chief of police in this book was all-around bad. If you know one of your officers slept with one of the suspects that she working on, it doesn't matter if she's the head of the department or not, realistically, she should have been taken off the case. Or at the very least, given a warning. That’s called a conflict of interest. and the whole department should have known they slept together because Bianca tried to use Oz as her alibi, even though Oz was with Vanessa. Vanessa knew she was lying because they were together. It’s not like Vanessa can hide that fact from the other officers. Also, when the chief's son was taken into custody by Vanessa, we never get any reaction from the chief. He never talks to Vanessa about arresting his son. The son just gets out on bail and we never hear about him or the girl he beat up again. What was the point of that storyline? The way the police force acts in this story isn't very realistic at all. 
Another detective trope that I hate is that the one person the main character trusts turned out the be the bad guy all along. I hated that it was Donnie. More so, I hate that it should have been obvious to me from the beginning. He was kind to Vanessa from the start and was the only one in the station who gave her a warm welcome. But him being the one who kidnapped the boys makes sense because Blake said it would be days in between getting food. So it should have been obvious to me that the kidnapper probably wasn’t someone who worked at the park. Donnie would’ve had to sneak into the park after hours, and he wouldn’t have been able to do that often because he works overtime as a police officer. I just didn't like that it was Donnie that was the bad guy. It felt too much like a copout. 
I also thought the ending was messy. Because yes, Vanessa was able to figure out it was Donnie in the end. But she wouldn't have known where Blake was or even that he was alive without Ava's help. And Ava wouldn't have known where Blake was either if it hadn't been for the weirdo who attacked her and chased her into the dungeons. Blake was found by accident because the daughter of the detective found him by accident when she was attacked randomly by another guy who had nothing to do with the missing boys. And then that dude got away!!! Like, what was that ending??? Also, I find it devastatingly annoying that Oz never investigated the dungeons at the park. Boys are going missing, and no one thinks to check the old dungeons under the clown house??? Oz was brave enough to drag Nick there after trying to cover up for Bianca, but he never thinks to check there for missing employees. It's like the dungeons were an old wives' tale even though the old owner was supposedly going to trial for what he did there. The dungeons had to be common knowledge if he was going to be going to court for his crimes. Why didn’t anyone think to check there? 
Also, Donnie's reasoning for wanting to do all of this didn’t make sense. I swear Bianca, that dumb Dragon Lady, had this entire town wrapped around her little finger. I started to think that even the chief of police was sleeping with her. Donnie loved Bianca during his time at the park, and he was capturing the boys because at one point they were all close to her. Which is such a weird reason for a cop to turn into a kidnapper. His actions go against what Bianca wanted to a small extent. Banca hated it when the Wonder Boys left her, that's why she would dump them before it was time for them to move on to college or whatever. But by Donnie kidnapping them and putting them in the dungeon, he essentially wasn't doing anything to help Bianca because they were out of her life anyway. Plus, they were alive. I don't know, Donnie's reasoning and how he went around showing his love for Bianca didn't make any sense. What makes even less sense is that if Bianca knew what Donnie was doing (it was hinted that she knew to an extent) it still wouldn't make sense because she shouldn't have felt suicidal or abandoned because the boys were still in the park. 
I also hated the fact that while the old owner of the park was described by all as creepy, disgusting, and a child abuser, Bianca, who was also sleeping with the employees, was rarely spoken about. Yes, the situations were different because the old owner used drugs and alcohol to abuse the kids and Bianca just use her charms and special privilege to get the boys to come to her. But still, it was creepy. And not even Oz tried to stop her from doing it. Like gross. 
I liked that Nick was alive. But it was a bit weird that he survived. Of all the places Oz could have taken him, it was the place where he was abused by the old owner to whom he took the body to. I still can't believe he would do it for Bianca though. And the reason that Donnie kept him alive even after all those years is weird too. The only reason Donnie left Nick alive is because of his connection with Bianca. But Bianca wanted Nick to die so it makes no sense for Donnie to want to go against Bianca's wishes to keep him alive. 
I didn't like that Vanessa killed her husband. She was having issues with her husband because of his mental instability and instead of trying to get him to go to therapy, she decided to cheat on him with a drug dealer. And, of course, the person who helped her cover it up was the mayor of the town (at least I think he was). And of course, the mayor was the one who got Vanessa the new job as head of the detective department in the first place. Sketchy. I thought that the whole storyline was unnecessary and didn't bring anything to the plot other than making things difficult between Vanessa and her daughter. 
My last complaint is Blake. I think Blake was the POV that I liked the most after Vanessa's because we got to see from the perspective of one of the victims. We don't know if he ended up surviving or not. The whole point for me finishing the book was to see if the victim would survive. That's the whole point of reading these crime books where time is of the essence. In books where we, the readers, know that the victim is alive and the detective doesn't means that we know that the survival rate of the victim goes down with each day. Time is ticking, and we know that every decision Vanessa makes directly affects Blakes's chances for survival. And in the end, it didn't matter, because Vanessa finds out that Blake was alive after he was found by her daughter. We know he went to the hospital, but we don't know if he survived the gunshot. For me, knowing if Blake survived or not was the whole point of finishing the book and we don't even get that answer. So what was the point of the book and having Blake's POV???
 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings