So, Marissa Meyer has done it, Rad Readers!
Why did I have any doubt in the first place? Why should I even be surprised? Marissa Meyer wrote the Lunar Chronicles and currently, I have read both Cinder and Scarlet, have Cress on my bookshelf, and am mad at myself for not finishing it yet. So, you could say I am a fan of her other work. The Lunar Chronicles is a retelling of the Cinderella story and this is the retelling of the Alice in Wonderland story. Obviously I am familiar with Cinderella but I have genuinely no knowledge of Alice in Wonderland and I was worried that it might have taken away from my reading experience, and honestly, it might have because for the large majority of the beginning of the book I found it frankly rather boring and tough to follow. I can't say though that it would be different if you did know the story because I just don't know the story! However, obviously because of the title of this blog post, I thought the ending was its saving grace and the two main characters of this book I found pretty absorbing! Let me brief you a bit on the story...
So, Catherine lives in Wonderland and in Wonderland she is the best baker in all of Hearts. Everyone knows that, especially the king... who is not married... who has a particular fondness for Catherine. This is most definitely a one-way affection, as our king is in general just a bit odd, also because her priorities lie somewhere else. She knows her gift for baking and she wants to pursue a career in it, running a bakery one day. However in this world that is not something a woman does, and more so, not something her family would allow of the next potential queen. The first time that she -literally, not even figuratively- runs away from the king's proposal she runs into Jest, the court Joker who is a character surrounded by mystery and excitement. This is also eventually where Cath's interests lie, and at the risk of being found out by her parents and the king, she and Jest unofficially, secretly form a relationship (uh oh...). What is empowering about this story is how Catherine is determined to live life on her terms, pursue what she wants, love who she wants, but in a world of magic, monsters, and most unfortunately, misogyny, her fate seems to have other plans.
So, as I said previously, I was not really into the book for the first couple hundred pages at all. I was on page 200-ish and I remember just sitting there thinking how nothing has happened yet in the story. For a stand-alone novel as well that is pretty rare because that doesn't leave you a lot of time to transition into the action or even have action at all (I do like the fact that it is a stand-alone novel though, too many trilogies in the YA genre if you ask me, brevity is an art form). For a lot of it, we just read a back and forth with Catherine and whoever about the bakery dreams, or a long scene just to further emphasize how unfit this man was to be king and how Catherine is not into him at all. I found this pretty redundant, that the message is easy to gather the first couple times it is brought up and that at a certain point the reader is just beat over the head with it.
**To break the pace of the review a little bit, I would like to touch on the character of the king. It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly it is that is so weird about him because Meyer never explicitly tells the reader. The way she writes him though makes you cringe whenever you read about him or what he does, it just further proves what a talented writer she is. From the way she describes how he takes Catherine's hand, weakly, how they are damp, etc. just makes him sound like such a meager dude! However, what I found confusing about this was the fact that it almost takes away from the feminist themes, the idea that the King is unfit to be Catherine's husband because of his stature. I know there are other reasons expressed why he isn't fit (he's awkward, accidentally rude, somewhat of an airhead, etc.) but Meyer spends a lot of time describing what physically makes him wrong for Catherine. I don't think this is very empowering at all, and sure it is likely that primarily girls are going to read this book, but that is not to say only girls will read this book and if a female were to be characterized in a manner like this I think the response would be very different. I'm not saying this is a make or break to the story, I only really noticed it upon reflection and I just think it might be a thought to keep in mind. Another implication I felt unfair on the king's behalf was the idea that this weakness also made him unfit to be king. I thought it almost made sense for the king of Hearts to be not very Kingly because this is a land that is 100% at peace, never goes to war, and aside from the new monster problem has never encountered real problems, so prior to now it was never truly a requisite for the king to have any type of governmental authority or power.
**Now back to you regularly scheduled program (book blog... you get the joke hopefully
There were also some inconsistencies in the beginning as well. For example, when talking about Catherine's dreams it is mentioned that when she dreams of lemon trees she wakes up with a fully grown one at the foot of her bed, and then another part where she mentions she has seen Jest in her dreams before as well. This aspect of the story -unless I missed it- never develops, or is explained really at all. I liked Catherine and I liked that she was a driven woman in a world where that is the societal norm, we love a good underlying feminist theme here on C8's rad reads, but at a certain point, it's just like... okay, we get it, let's make it go somewhere this time.
Long story short, it takes a long time for it to get somewhere but at least when it does it goes somewhere pretty phenomenal! Any scene with Jest in it was a good one and that is fact, not opinion. Marissa Meyer did such an amazing job writing him. He is so mysterious, unique, and layered and you could just picture him (as well as the world they lived in) so clearly in your head. The fantastic writing was honestly the biggest thing I noticed about the book! I digress, once Jest was in the picture this book was undeniably hard to put down. Action sequences were thrilling (as I'd expected having read the first two books of the Lunar Chronicles, I knew what Meyer had in her repertoire so to say). At that point, it was a five-star read just for the entertainment factor alone.
Finally, the ending was just beautiful. Its tragedy was something I didn't see coming. I was utterly floored and it is awesome when a book can do that to you. *Spoiler alert* When Jest died and Cath gave up her heart caring only about revenge and ridding herself of the wretched pain of grief and heartbreak, I felt for her. Meyer does such an amazing job at making you connect and feel for the character that when Catherine starts slipping when she starts becoming a different person entirely you are so sad to see her go. It was amazing writing, and I loved how it broke the trope of the "nice girl." No, Catherine was no nice girl anymore, she would not sit back anymore. They killed Jest so she would manipulate the king into making her queen and from there she would behead Peter and begin her reign as heartless (loved the full circle to the title of the book, by the way, love how you only understand it in the end). It was a fast read once the good parts came along and I would recommend that you give this book a shot (also if you haven't read the Lunar Chronicles you should absolutely give them a shot too because I have yet to encounter a bad Marissa Meyer book)!
Keep it cool and keep on reading,
- C8 ;)