The Looking Glass Wars

This post first published May 23, 2011.

Author: Frank Beddor
Published: September 2006
Publisher: Egmont Books
Series: The Looking Glass Wars #1
376 pages (paperback)
 
I’m a huge fan of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. It started when I was younger and saw Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, which I’ve watched a hundred times, and when I got older, I read the book a hundred times. I’ve been a fan of all things Wonderland related since, there’s something timeless and oh-so-magical about Wonderland that I am just in love with. When I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it.
With that being said, I want to make it clear I’m not one of those snobs that treats the original like it’s the Holy Grail. I think I’m pretty open minded about retellings of classic stories (or even really strange video game spin offs — American McGee’s Alice, anyone?) I wanted to treat this book as its own, so I read it trying not to make any comparisons to the classic or any other Wonderland related story (like Tim Burton’s recent reimagining). While I think this book had a great concept and a fun story, the execution was rather painful. The writing was really hard for me to digest.

In The Looking Glass Wars, Alyss lives with her mother, Queen Genevieve and father, King Noland, in the matriarchal kingdom of Wonderland. Alyss’ aunt, Redd, had been banished from Wonderland for years now, after Alyss’ grandmother decided Redd (although the eldest sibling) was not fit to run the kingdom. Humiliated, angry and vengeful, Redd planned her comeback and with the help of Black Imagination, ruined Alyss’ seventh birthday party by skewering King Noland and beheading Queen Genevieve.

With the help of her body guard Hatter Madigan, Alyss manages to escape by jumping into the Pool of Tears … which leads to our world. Alyss gets separated from Hatter Madigan, and ends up in a London orphanage, where she gets adopted by the Liddell family. At first Alyss tries to tell everyone about Wonderland and how she’s a princess and needs to go back to save her kingdom, but over time as her new family tries to tell her how it’s all in her head, Alyss starts to believe maybe it was. That is, until thirteen years later, when Redd realizes Alyss is still alive and sends an assassin after her.
You might be wondering if you need to read the original to understand this book. Not at all. It will probably help if you already have a general idea of what the story is about and some of the characters. One of the things about this book is that the author doesn’t describe things much. He doesn’t describe what Alice or anyone really looks like, what the card soldiers look like (it took me a while to figure out they look like the bugs on the cover of the book, and not the traditional floppy playing cards), the size of the caterpillars, etc. I think he relied a lot on the reader already having an idea of what Wonderland is like. And while not necessary, I personally think it will add to your reading experience if you know a little about the history of how the original novel came about and the real life Alice Liddell. It won’t confuse you if you don’t know it, but I think you will have a better appreciation of some parts of the story if you did.

The story itself, like I mentioned earlier, is actually pretty good. Plot-wise, it has nearly nothing to do with the original — just borrows the spirit of Wonderland and some of its characters. You have to think of it as its own story really, and not a Wonderland retelling. It’s jam packed with action, there is always something happening, and I think overall, it is a decently thought out story. The problem with this book, which bothered me constantly, was the writing. I read that the author is actually a film writer or something like that — and it shows. It reads like a screenplay, especially the fight scenes. You don’t feel anything, no thrills, you’re just reading a string of actions. I liken this book to bad fanfiction. I think it’s the reason why the characters were bad cliches. I mean, I probably would have given up on the book based on the extremely low quality writing if it weren’t for the fact that 1) I was determined to finish this Wonderland related story and 2) the story itself actually wasn’t terrible. I mean, I’m no literary critic or writer myself, not by a long shot, but the writing was really distracting.
If you are a die-hard, open minded Wonderland fan who wants to gobble up every piece of Wonderland you can find in the world, then you might want to give it a try; otherwise, this isn’t anywhere near the top of my Books I Recommend list. The story, in spirit, is thrilling and eventful, but the writing somehow dulled it all, and it just felt like I had to use my own imagination to fill in a lot of the gaps the book couldn’t say with words. However, I would consider reading its sequels … just ’cause, it’s Wonderland.

My Rating: 2/5