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A review by justinkhchen
Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier
3.0
2.75 stars
Going into Wonderland, I was anticipating an atmospheric thriller about a theme park, but it turned out to be a very generic small town police procedural mystery in the vein of Law & Order SVU and Criminal Minds (which are referenced in the story—so the similarity is at least partially intentional). It will have its audience, but I came out of it feeling like I didn't get the experience I was sold to.
Linda Howard's novels keep coming to mind as I read Wonderland—because this truly reads more like an early 2000s romantic suspense (without the required HEA). So much of the book is preoccupied by Vanessa's struggle between her new job as the deputy police chief, her interpersonal relationships, and her role as a windowed singled parent. The pacing is also off, consistently brewing but never reaching a peak, diving into the town folks in excessive details (even when they are not particularly critical to the plot), and concludes with an ending that opens up multiple romantic possibilities for the female protagonist (literally every men she interacts with fall for her to a certain degree).
The central mystery is very much crimes of sexual nature (again with the Law & Order SVU reference), with the crux of the plot focuses more on human nature, rather than a geographical setting, the theme park element acts more like set dressing rather than a plot-driven element. My last observation is a little harder to verbalize: Wonderland contains a lot of dark themes, but the execution comes across as convenient plot devices to have characters behave a certain way, or to create unexpected reveals—while I know that's what thriller is all about at its core, for some reason the delivery here really flags me as cheapening these traumas, and a little insensitive.
Wonderland reads like the first season of an abruptly canceled TV series, so much time spent on building the setting/character, only to leave them underutilized (why giving the protagonist 2 children when one of them is barely in the book? Why having a semi-important character shows up just as the book ends?)—I won't be surprised if this was indeed intended to be the first book of a series that never panned out. With 2 very mediocre experiences (this and Things We Do in the Dark), I might have to conclude Jennifer Hillier is simply not an author for me—which is too bad because I want to support a fellow Canadian!
**The Book Troop Book Club January 2023 Selection**
Going into Wonderland, I was anticipating an atmospheric thriller about a theme park, but it turned out to be a very generic small town police procedural mystery in the vein of Law & Order SVU and Criminal Minds (which are referenced in the story—so the similarity is at least partially intentional). It will have its audience, but I came out of it feeling like I didn't get the experience I was sold to.
Linda Howard's novels keep coming to mind as I read Wonderland—because this truly reads more like an early 2000s romantic suspense (without the required HEA). So much of the book is preoccupied by Vanessa's struggle between her new job as the deputy police chief, her interpersonal relationships, and her role as a windowed singled parent. The pacing is also off, consistently brewing but never reaching a peak, diving into the town folks in excessive details (even when they are not particularly critical to the plot), and concludes with an ending that opens up multiple romantic possibilities for the female protagonist (literally every men she interacts with fall for her to a certain degree).
The central mystery is very much crimes of sexual nature (again with the Law & Order SVU reference), with the crux of the plot focuses more on human nature, rather than a geographical setting, the theme park element acts more like set dressing rather than a plot-driven element. My last observation is a little harder to verbalize: Wonderland contains a lot of dark themes, but the execution comes across as convenient plot devices to have characters behave a certain way, or to create unexpected reveals—while I know that's what thriller is all about at its core, for some reason the delivery here really flags me as cheapening these traumas, and a little insensitive.
Wonderland reads like the first season of an abruptly canceled TV series, so much time spent on building the setting/character, only to leave them underutilized (why giving the protagonist 2 children when one of them is barely in the book? Why having a semi-important character shows up just as the book ends?)—I won't be surprised if this was indeed intended to be the first book of a series that never panned out. With 2 very mediocre experiences (this and Things We Do in the Dark), I might have to conclude Jennifer Hillier is simply not an author for me—which is too bad because I want to support a fellow Canadian!
**The Book Troop Book Club January 2023 Selection**