Title: Splintered
Series: Splintered,
#1
Author: A.G. Howard
Publisher: Amulet
Books
Publication Date: January
1, 2013
Genres: YA,
Fantasy
Reviewed by: Books4Tomorrow
Source: Purchased
My smiley rating: 5/5
SUMMARY
This stunning debut captures the grotesque
madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and
independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely
the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This
family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life
inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep
it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.
REVIEW
Splintered is yet another book I read because of
all the hype and its colorful, fascinating cover. I really think it had more to
do with the cover, than with the hype. But that’s not important. What is
important is that one: this is unlike (and better) than any movie or book
adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic; and two: the Lewis Carroll classic is
merely the sugarcoating for the real Wonderland…and
the Alice who came back from there all those years ago, may or may not have
been the same Alice who went down the rabbit hole the first time around. Now,
many generations later, Alice’s great-great-granddaughter has to go back to
Wonderland to fix Alice’s messes and break the curse that her family had to
endure for generations.
No,
boys and girls, this is no ordinary fairy tale.
So many
things I loved about this novel! The story really picks up when Alyssa finds
the passage back to Wonderland, but before that happens, the author magnifies
the suspense using all the tricks in the book to create an atmosphere of foreboding.
By the time Alyssa steps through the mirror, my nail-biting has escalated to a
new level. All the questions raised throughout the story are systematically
answered and Alyssa draws all the conclusions before I even got to them. Some
would’ve gone completely over my head had she not put two and two together for
me. Suffice to say, there are a lot of twists and unpredictable outcomes of
events in this story, and if you’re expecting a clean-cut, straightforward plot
with fluffy, lovable characters, you might find that you’re in over your head.
And now I feel like saying “Off with your head!”, but I digress. I enjoyed the
constant comparisons Alyssa makes between this Wonderland and the one in
Carroll’s version, and I can tell you now I’d rather find myself in Carroll’s
less threatening Wonderland than the one created by Howard.
I loved
the family dynamic between Alyssa and her dad. Alyssa’s mom has been institutionalized
for quite some time, which of course places an emotional burden on both Alyssa
and her father, yet they remain hopeful for her mother’s mental recovery.
Alyssa’s dad isn’t an overbearing parent who places unreasonable restrictions
on his daughter, but gives her space and freedom to grow and make her own
choices. In most YA novels the parents are notoriously absent, so it was
refreshing to find an existing family unit – however dysfunctional – between
Alyssa and her parents, which proved to be an integral part of the plot for Splintered. Even though I couldn’t
relate to Alyssa in any way, her determination, courage, and flaws endeared her
to me even when I disagreed with some of her decisions.
Other
than Alyssa, Morpheus is without a doubt the star of this show, with Jeb being
a plot device as a solution for when Alyssa gets into sticky situations
(sometimes literally) or for when she needs to be motivated to make a difficult
choice. Secondary characters, specifically those of Wonderland, comes to life
right in front of your eyes, and as ghoulish as the majority of these
outrageous creatures who strive on chaos are, they were the ones that kept me
hooked with their sinister antics. I couldn’t help but imagine Johnny Depp
playing the role of seductively charming, mysterious, darkly attractive
Morpheus. Jeb paled in comparison to Morpheus and became more like a buzzing emo
insect in the background than a love interest, which thus brings me to the
matter of…(sigh)…the love-triangle. Some stories need a love-triangle to make
it work, others don’t. This is one of them. The story is exceptional in every
way and can easily stand on its own without a love-triangle and still blow the
reader away. The love-you, hate-you shenanigans between Alyssa and Morpheus cause
enough drama to keep any romance-fanatic flipping the pages, but with Jeb in
the mix, it just turned out to be tragically eye-roll worthy. Jeb makes for a
really terrific best friend, but for me he didn’t work as a love interest. I
would’ve gladly deducted one star because of this silly little triangle, but
the story all in all is way too good for anything less than a solid five-star
rating.
The
ending was satisfactory, but felt a tiny bit rushed. I was happy the way things
ended with Alyssa and Morpheus, but less happy about where Jeb fit into the
picture. I’ll admit that I’m rooting for Morpheus as he is far more interesting
and unpredictable than annoyingly overprotective Jeb, but the important thing
is that there is going to be a next book in this series and I can only hope
that Jeb will drop out of the picture. My advance apologies to Jeb-fans…or not.
The
overall presentation – from the splendidly imaginative cover and very fitting
title, to the superb story which takes you to a Tim Burton-esque Wonderland of
epic proportions – Splintered is a
gem that rises above its peers in the YA genre and blows all other Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland retellings
out of the water. Its rich storyline with colorful settings and characters born
from the darkest recesses of the mind will entertain and thrill any reader who
dares to pick up this mysterious and twisted tale by an author who proved to
have a knack for the macabre with this debut novel. So much more can be said
for the ingenuity of Splintered, but simply
look at the cover. It speaks for itself.
READ more REVIEWS
Splintered by A.G. Howard has 1381 reviews on
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PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT the AUTHOR
A.G.
Howard was inspired to write Splintered
while working at a school library. She always wondered what would’ve happened
had the subtle creepiness of Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland taken center stage, and she hopes her darker and
funkier tribute to Carroll will inspire readers to seek out the stories that
won her heart as a child.
When
she’s not writing, A.G.’s pastimes are reading, rollerblading, gardening, and
family vacations which often include impromptu side trips to 18th
century graveyards or condemned schoolhouses to appease her overactive muse.
AUTHOR LINKS
3 comments:
This was one of my favorite reads of last year (I got an ARC). I can't wait for the next one! I loved this one!
Thank you for your feedback, Brooke! I'm also looking forward to the second book and am hoping I'd be lucky enough to receive and ARC for review. Who do you like best - Jeb or Morpheus?
Great review. Your reviews are all noteworthy. You should write your own book.
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