Frank Beddor has written an interesting retelling of Alice in Wonderland called The Looking Glass Wars. The angle he takes is that Wonderland is a real place, Alyss Heart is its princess, and she has to flee it to our world when her aunt Redd kills the king and queen and takes over. The story follows both sides of the looking glass, as Alyss tries to grow up in her new world and as the resistance fighters try to keep the old ways alive under the boot of Redd.
I picked up this book at the request of my wife, who really loved it. I, on the other hand, didn’t. I also didn’t hate the book, I just found it to be predictable. When the book was described to me as “a darker retelling of Alice in Wonderland if Wonderland was real” I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. Not all the details, but a general sense of where the story would start, where it would go, and how it would get there. In the end, though, it was the details that made the book worth reading.
I wouldn’t give the book two big thumbs up, but it was an enjoyable read, and good enough that I’ll keep reading the series as it develops.