A YA Alice Retelling

This was an amazing story, one of the best I’ve listened to. It had fantasy, romance, and plot twists. This is a must-read.

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Unique take on Wonderland

A very different look into wonderland, that dragged me in quickly and left me wanting more.

Great love triangle, where you’re rooting for both love interests and can’t decide yourself. The heroine is No faded damsel, she is strong and interesting.

Wonderful performance by the reader. Very worth picking up- you won’t regret it!

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting

It’s an interesting take in Alice in Wonderland a little dark with mental illness, an insane asylum and talks of electric shock therapy.

Alyssa the female protagonist is 15 maybe 16 (personally her age bugs me, and I find the sexual tension between her and her 19 year old male best friend. And between her and a few hundred or thousands of year old man in wonderland… is gross for her age!) why must writers do this please make books about characters 21 and over no one wants to hear about children talking about loosing their virginity! 🤢🤮

The rest of the story was pretty good, she went into wonderland to try to break her family curse that affects just the woman. They end up crazy. Yet we later learn it’s not actually a curse.

She went down with her best male friend who she’s had a crush on forever and same with him… they finish many tasks trying to break the curse and go home.

There’s a sacrifice where he ends up back home with zero memories of his time with her in wonderland.

She finds out who her bloodline is and goes home to save her mom from electric shock therapy.

But the story’s not done yet…

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OK🙂

It is a interesting new take on Alice in Wonderland
I liked it but it’s more of a personal preference book

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Amazing

I just found this series and honestly I'm not a fan of Alice in wonderland but I loved this morbid take on it.
am moving right into number 2... Eeekk

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Clever Idea.. Inferior Execution

It's genuinely unfortunate that Anita .G. Howard has such a terrible sense of pacing. The premise of this book/series is intriguing: that Lewis Carroll's 'Wonderland' is, in fact, a real - bizarre & oddly terrifying - parallel universe that has captured the descendants of Alice Liddell (the little girl for whom Carroll wrote the tale) in a "curse".. one in which women in that bloodline hear the overwhelming voices of flowers & insects and develop unwilling magical powers at puberty - and which the world in general has determined is insanity.
The Wonderland environment - once we get there - is truly "fantastic", the main characters (Humans 'Alyssa' & 'Jeb', and Wonderland-caretaker/Giant Moth-like 'Morpheus') are a cast with fascinating motivations, and the descriptions are wonderfully vivid - but Howard spends her effort setting up the plot matrix with tedious (actually plodding) "real-world" encounters between Alyssa and friends/family/rivals, childhood-trauma-heavy backstories, and odd obsessions ("I desperately want to kiss him.. but can't" teenage urges; "She's such a bitch" high-school dramas; and baffling incredibly detailed fashion & makeup tips.)
In combination, they make the first ⅓ of the book almost painful to tolerate - but the plot is too complicated to allow readers/listeners to simply skip through Chapters 1-9.

Sadly, the subpar voice-acting from Rebecca Gibel makes the situation worse. Don't get me wrong - her diction, timbre, cadence, and tone are actually praiseworthy (and the technical support from Blackstone Audio Inc is exemplary) - but she really should avoid accents (her "Cockney" delivery for Morpheus is *horrific*).. and her chosen voices for the creatures in Wonderland are often eyerollingly cartoonish.

I rate this disappointing effort 4 stars out of 10. The confused attraction/teenage angst aspects of the story overwhelm the fantasy.. but are handled deftly enough that budding Romance Novel fans will likely enjoy this book. As for myself - I'm more of a Fantasy-SciFi reader - 'Splintered' is not great at delivering in that sphere.
If it weren't included as a 'Plus' selection (free with my subscription), I wouldn't have tried it.. and that's appropriate.
Unless you're an insatiable fan of frustrated love-triangle plotlines, pass if they ask for a Credit.

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Narrator sounds like a robot

Really want to read this one but the narrator is SO HARD to get past!

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