Book Review #1

Title: Splintered

Author: A.G Howard

Pages: 371

Genre: Fantasy, paranormal

Published: 2013

Summary:

Alyssa is a descendant of Alice Lidell who is known as Alice in Wonderland. Alyssa’s mother is being treated for insanity at an asylum. Alyssa starts hearing flowers whispering to her in their garden and she gets teased at school for being descendant of a crazy person like Alice and when the voices get stronger she feels that something has to be done. To find the answer to all of this she looks for clues that will lead her to Wonderland where she has to know who she can trust: Jeb, her best friend whom she’s had a crush on for so long or the mysterious Morpheus who is her guide through wonderland, but who might have his own motives. She finds a book in a chair that they have in their living room and starts following the clues and realizes that the rabbit hole is in England. What she doesn’t know is that Wonderland is darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll wrote. There, she must pass tests to prove that she is a Lidell and fix the mistakes so that she can save her family.

Writing:

The story is set from Alyssa’s point of view in the book and you get to follow her. The way the author wrote made it seem as if you actually were there in Wonderland with her, following her throughout her adventures. It was as if Alyssa herself was talking to you.

The writing in itself was really good. The fact that the color of the text was purple made it more “enchanting” in a way, it wasn’t your typical black that sometimes can be a bit too harsh. It was lyrical and mesmerizing in its own way, nothing was described overly thorough that can sometimes annoy the reader and the characters seemed so real when reading that you almost thought they were right beside you.

All in all, this book was wonderful, mad, disturbing and magical. If you’ve read Alice in Wonderland, or even if you haven’t, this is a good read to get you into the mood.

SPOILER ALERT!

Best part:

The best part was the twist in the story. At first Morpheus seems like this good guide that you could trust and then he’s suddenly a bad guy whose intentions were just for his own sake to help himself yet later on he’s saving Alyssa from the horrible beast. Jeb was this best friend who followed her and was set on being there for her and saving her yet she somehow felt tricked when it came to his feelings for her when she hears it all from Morpheus and she doesn’t know who to trust anymore. Oh the triangle! I’m not saying love triangle but oh how many feelings there are involved! It’s everything from love to seduction, lies, betrayal and confusion.

Worst:

I can’t say I have a “worst” part of the book because it was all exciting and I was really into the book from the first pages, but I did get a bit annoyed but that’s because these types of things annoy me no matter what, if it’s a movie, anime, book or real life. The fact that Jeb was so over protective making Alyssa seem like a weak fragile girl even though she wasn’t, she just didn’t get to show it because he was overly suspicious, which I could understand but trying to protect her non stop was just plain annoying even though I like him.

Rating:

This book is so entertaining and I think anyone can enjoy it whether you like or even read Alice in Wonderland.