whitneydaniell

by: L.L. McKinney
published: Sep 25, 2018
genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction
384 Pages, Paperback

Alice in Wonderland except, the portal to Wonderland is in the back of a hookah lounge in Atlanta, jk jk jk. It’s in the broom closet of a pub… in Atlanta.

The retelling of this story is just, okay. Very, meh. On the night Alice’s father passes away suddenly, as grief takes over her, all Alice can think to do is run. As she tries to put as much distance between her and her grief, she is attacked by a Fiend. A Fiend was once a human who, by the power of the Black Queen, corrupts the human turning them into a Nightmare. To Alice’s surprise, Addison Hatta is there to save her and ultimately, recruits her to be a Dreamwalker. Dreamwalkers are humans who are trained to fight Nightmares in Wonderland before they cross the veil. Only humans, or Dreamwalkers, can kill Nightmares. Nightmares reside in Wonderland but are creations of human nightmares and can cross the veil into the human realm.

Alice trains with Hatta for 3 months before he takes her to Wonderland and she officially becomes, Buffy the Nightmare Slayer. We get a timeline jump of 1 year and we learn that Alice has been to Wonderland many times and killed many Nightmares but, when she heads back on her so-called “final” journey she is attacked by the Black Knight and his presence means trouble.

Final Thoughts: This was just “okay”.

If I had a ‘wish list’ of things I could’ve given to the author, McKinney, this is what I would’ve asked for:

• More world-building. While the descriptions of Wonderland are detailed when Alice is there; the GLOW, the Blind Thief’s Forest, and the White Queen’s Castle — I still have many questions about Wonderland. Maybe my questions will be answered in other books in the series, I just don’t know if this book was good enough to get me to finish the series.
• More character development. Honestly, Alice annoyed me consistently by running off and being gone from her mother for hours and days! I would have liked to see her mother more involved instead of this background theme, of the death of this young girl. Alice let her friend Courtney know about Wonderland, why not her mother? Speaking of Courtney and Alice’s mom, there is absolutely ZERO back-story for any character outside of Hatta and, even with him, you have to piece together different bits from different chapters to fully know why he was exiled from Wonderland.
• More fantasy action! The characters spend so much time in the pub and very little time in Wonderland — maybe that was just me. A voyage to the White Queen’s Castle was said to take almost. a week, several days, and instead, I believe, they made camp one night and then the next day, they were there. Did I miss something there? There is a big battle scene with the White Knight, Hatta, the Black Knight, and Alice but it happens on a football field in Atlanta… boooooooooooooooo, tomato, tomato, tomato. I would have loved to see Wonderland explored more and more characters from Wonderland are introduced, to the reader.
• Less. Love. Story. UGH. This “crush” or whatever it is that Alice has with Hatta… give it a rest.

Was I impressed with this book? No. Was the story engaging? Yes, it kept my attention. The writing and dialogue were very good, read this with ease. Again, I felt that character development was lacking and world-building could have been better. Will I grab the next in this series? Yea, I support black authors and stories about black people and POC. Do I hope the next book is better? YES!