 The Looking Glass Wars, written by Frank Beddor, is a retelling of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.
Beddor takes Carroll's classic tale of a young girl who falls into a rabbit hole and completely reinvents it into a world of adventure pinning good vs. evil. The original does the same with Alice vs. the Red Queen. The difference with this book, Alyss is from Wonderland and Red is her aunt. Princess Alyss is next for the thrown of Wonderland which is currently run by her mother, that is until her Aunt Redd comes into the picture. Furious about being overthrown by her younger sister, Redd gets revenge killing both the Queen and King, leaving Alyss orphaned. Alyss escapes with Hatter to our world. Separated, Hatter feverishly searches for the princess, while Alyss is must conform to the reality of her new life. One of my favorite parts, she gets adopted by the Liddells and meets Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author of the original tale of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll himself. Beddor actually takes real life events and plays them out in his retelling. Just like real life, they go on a boat ride together. The difference, it's Alyss who tells him the tale of Wonderland and he takes her stories to create Alice in Wonderland and it's through this book that gives Hatter the clue he needs in finding the lost princess. My absolute favorite part of this story is the idea of imagination being a form of magical powers. In Wonderland there are two forms, White Imagination and Black Imagination. No doubt which categories Alyss and Redd fall into. What makes me like it so much is that one of the main themes in Carroll's version was imagination. The fact that imagination can be so powerful it makes a little girl believe she was in fact in a fantasy world where a queen wanted to cut off her head. In Beddor's version, he uses imagination as a form of a weapon, away for Alyss to avenge her parents and get back the crown that belongs her. Here are some more interesting twists:
And that is juts a taste of the fun retelling this trilogy offers you.
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 Juliet Immortal and Romeo Redeemed, written by Stacy Jay, is a retelling of Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo and Juliet.
* If you have not read these books and don't want me to spoil anything, please stop reading. As a book lover, I hate to ruin anything for anyone. * While the plot was a little confusing (alternate universes?), here’s what made this retelling interesting: 1) In order to become an immortal dark Mercenary, Romeo tricked Juliet into killing herself. 2) Juliet became an Ambassador of Light, forever becoming an enemy of Romeo and working to save soulmates from his wrath. 3) To help his cause of breaking up soulmates, Romeo spun the story of his and Juliet’s love for Shakespeare. Thus helping the author to write Romeo and Juliet. 4) The Friar who married Romeo and Juliet was actually a Mercenary himself and Juliet’s Nurse was the Ambassador sent to save the star-crossed lovers. The Friar won that battle. 5) The Friar and the Nurse were soulmates themselves. 6) Ben Luna is also Benvolio who is a second soulmate for Juliet and Ariel Dragland is also Rosaline who is a second soulmate for Romeo. I think if you can get past some of the supernatural confusion, these stories are quite interesting in how Stacy Jay plays around with the original Shakespeare tale to tries to make it her own. Last week I finished reading Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and since then I've been wanting to get here and right a review about it. Thank god I found the time today.
For starters, I read it in two day. I've been trying to limit my reading to my commute using my time at home to write. But, on that second day, I just had to continue reading it to find out what happens. Needless to say, I didn't get any writing done that day. I really loved the concept of this book. My favorite part was the mixing of Hannah's story with that of Clay's. I liked the two distinct voices and how it contently jumped from one to the other, sometimes so quickly you could almost miss it. What I also liked was seeing what stories pushed her to the brink of no return. Some can seem so trivial to us, a bad joke that we've all experienced in our lives, but how in someone who is depressed, that one bad joke could be the final straw in their lives and how a string of bad jokes make them feel like they have no place else to go. I definitely recommend this book to read. It's an eye opener as well as a page turner. But it doesn't get so dark that it can be scary. It's a good mix. |
