The Looking Glass Wars
by Frank Beddor, read by Gerard Doyle
You think Alice in Wonderland was just some trippy dream of Lewis Carroll’s? You’d be dead wrong. What Carroll thought was some little girl’s imagination was a gross distortion of what really is happening in Wonderland. Alice (whose name is really spelled Alyss) is the princess of Wonderland. Her aunt Redd has killed both of her parents and assumed the throne, making Wonderland a horrible place to live. Alyss was exiled to our world when she turned 7, forced to live as an orphan, no one believing her story at all. After 13 years, she is brought back to Wonderland to fight her aunt and take her place as queen. But she’s still struggling with whether or not Wonderland even exists!
I got this book on audio from the Free Library of Philadelphia to listen to on the plane to New Mexico. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I thought it was amazing! The true story behind Alice in Wonderland… I like twists on stories like that. Doyle does a great job reading them, and truly, I’m exited to read the rest of them. There is a great cast of characters. A lot of this book reminds me of other things I’ve read. The plot reminded me of C. S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian, where a ragtag band of rebels has to fight for a usurped throne. There’s a character who reminds me very much of Butler from Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. The wordplay reminded me a little bit of The Phantom Tollbooth, probably because I read that recently. But the book didn’t seem like a copy of anything. It holds its own. I’d be very excited to see a movie come from this.
Image taken from http://www.amazon.com
Tags: alice in wonderland, artermis fowl, audio books, book review, classic literature, classic literature adaptations, fantasy, frank beddor, gerard doyle, imagination, lewis carroll, prince caspian, princesses, the phantom tollbooth, war, young adult books
June 24, 2011 at 4:56 pm |
[...] The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor While I’ve never read Carroll’s original Alice in Wonderland stories, I know them and I appreciate some of the ways that they are being reworked and revisited. I listened to this book without any recommendation from anyone – I merely found it while browsing. It was fantastic. I am very much looking forward to the rest of this trilogy. [...]
July 30, 2011 at 5:09 pm |
[...] Warning!!! Contains spoilers for The Looking Glass Wars!!! [...]
January 13, 2012 at 8:44 pm |
[...] Contains spoilers for The Looking Glass Wars and Seeing [...]