I really liked the book.
It was exciting; had a very Tim Burton feel to it. But it also had some parts I felt were really lacking. I think with a few hundred extra pages it
could have been amazing and the problems I detail below could have been
fixed.
Alyss vs Alice.
One of the things that really bothered me in this book was
when the tudor to the Lidells asks Alyss to write her name on the board. Alyss had raised her hand and clarified that
her name was not spelled like that, so the tudor offers her a chance to correct
it. But when Alyss respells it ‘Alyss’
the tudor yells at her and makes her write on the board ‘Alice’ 100 times.
If the teacher was not going to believe her about a
different spelling, why did she say Alyss could correct it in the first
place?
The Looking Glass
Maze.
What the heck was the point of this part? This was the crucial part in the hero’s
journey when they learn to use their unique skills, but I didn’t feel like
Alyss actually learned to DO anything.
She just sees some visions that she has to finally decide are not real,
and learn to control her temper, and suddenly she is a bad-ass, imagination wielding
warrior princess?
No. Just. No.
Young Alyss and old
Alyss.
My biggest complaint with this book was that I didn’t really
like Alyss. I liked her when she was young. She had spunk, she used her imagination
naughtily. But as soon as she turns into
Alice I just disliked her. Boring boring
boring. When she came back to Wonderland
she was whiny. And then she went through
the maze and she was much too powerful.
Must refer Frank Beddor to Sanderson’s rules of magic. THERE HAVE TO BE LIMITATIONS! Otherwise the characters just get boring.
I enjoyed the secondary characters much more than the primary characters. Dodge seemed like the only character (after
Alyss became Alice) who was developed well.
I would give this a 3 star rating, but because it did do a
good job of capturing my attention and the illustrations were beautiful- I will
give it a 3.5 rating.
Okay, it has been years, so I really don't remember specific plot points, but I feel like everything you said matches up very closely with how I feel about this book (especially if I were to re-read it now). I loved the feel of the book, and I ADORED young Alyss, but the character development later on was severally lacking.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I liked Hatter. And the young girl (Hatter's daughter?). Was her name Molly? Or maybe that was her mom's name. I can't remember.
One of the reasons I didn't like the later books as much is because I feel like he didn't really do Dodge justice in the character development department, especially in the third book.
But the feeeeel of this book is so awesome <3 Ha ha ha.
Oh, the other minor thing that really bothered me was that the Cheshire Cat is so evil. Like, I always loved the original Cheshire Cat so much because he's kind of in the middle. Like, he kinda sorta helps Alice, but at the same time he doesn't always really do that, and he's more just having fun at being an observer. So I don't like the idea of him working for the Red Queen.
DeleteYES. I had the same feeling about Chesh. I liked his character in the Tim Burton movie much more. Also, I felt like there was no actual reason for Redd to be so evil. What was her motivation. Maybe we get more in later books, but I just didn't feel it.
DeleteI liked Hatter as well. Though the fact that it took him 13 years to find her was crazy. The young girl...I don't think is Hatter's daughter unless you know something from later books, but she was the half and half race Hatter looked down on until she could fight? Yeah- her name is Molly. I liked her too :D