Splintered by A.G. Howard
♦publisher: Amulet Books
♦release date: January 1, 2013
♦hardcover, 384 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review
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: As someone who grew up with the tale of Alice in Wonderland, in book form, in movie form (several different versions, actually), and surrounded with the characters in all kinds of figurines and collector pieces, reading Splintered was an absolutely unique experience. A.G. Howard took a world that is so familiar and beloved and gave us something new and intriguing and absolutely twisted.
I was actually surprised with how urban-feeling the setting and characters were. Our heroine, Alyssa, is a skater girl with a funky sense of girly style. She's a character with a great dose of attitude and creativity, but also one that has been emotionally knocked down and teased her whole life for her ties to the Alice stories, one struggling to deal with having a mother in an institution, and one who is terrified that her ability to hear the voices of flowers and bugs will land her in the same place. I loved the build up of the story, learning about her family and her crush on her best friend, Jeb, and all the crazy occurances that lead her to seek out the Rabbit Hole.
Wonderland itself was amazingly recreated. It was such a brilliant twist to stay close to the original story. Alyssa must basically trace the footsteps of Alice to find her way back home, but she soon finds out that Alice must have been too young to process the dark things she saw. The creatures are far, far creepier that the ones she knows from the book. Howard's descriptions are vivid and gruesome---characters like the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Tweedle twins are completely reimagined into dark, nightmarish creatures, yet enough traces were left of the original children's book characters to make me feel nostalgic and still be drawn in by them. Wonderland has always had an underlying, almost innocent vein of chaos and madness running through it, but in Splintered it's brought right to the surface and made not-so-innocent anymore!
There was a love story here---a bit of a love triangle, actually---but I have to admit that it was the one small part of the story that didn't draw me in. Maybe because I found both guys unlikable for most of the story. Morpheus was too cocky and emo and just plain sinister, and Jeb...well, he was sweet at times and tried to be chivalrous and I loved that they were best friends...but many times he was just too pushy, a little too brooding, and didn't seem to understand Alyssa, what she was going though and what was important to her.
STILL, despite my feelings about the love story, I thought this story was brilliant. It was creepy and emotional and the kind of twisted adventure that really gets inside your head---I do believe I actually dreamed of having wings once or twice in the last few days of reading it. :) Such an great debut, and I can't wait to see what A.G. Howard takes on next.
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