Heartless by Marissa Meyer

So this month I have been on a bit of a YA fantasy kick which is quite nice because I haven't felt like that for a while. After reading To Kill a Kingdom, I fancied another alternative origin story type thing so I opted for Heartless, a retelling/origin story for the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive about how Wonderland could be handled (after all, we all saw what Tim Burton did to it) and while this does make some of the same mistakes as the Tim Burton movie, it actually does a fairly decent job.

The main issue this book has is pacing. Our main character is Lady Catherine, a girl who is about to be proposed to by the King of Hearts but really wants to run off and start her own bakery with her maid. Almost three quarters of the story is her trying to dodge proposals, all the while going on dates and flirting with a court joker named Jest. The actual plot kickstarts just after this point and then finishes abruptly with the end of the book. It would have been far better paced had the plot started earlier and then been the main focus as opposed to her personal drama.

The other issues are all fairly minor. Catherine really could have been Alice under a different name, and I disliked how several Alice quotes were given to her. How does that work in the sense of Alice In Wonderland following this story? It's a little weird to have Catherine go through the mad tea party and the Caterpillar exchanges etc when Alice will presumably do the same. A lot of the Wonderland elements were incorporated very cleverly and there's some neat stuff in here, but unfortunately there is also very mild political elements. It's nowhere near as bad as the Burton film but it was enough to make me doubt how it worked within the world itself. Having said that, I liked the creativity behind things such as the Mock Turtle and Mary Ann, and it is remarkable the amount of detail Marissa Meyer has included.

Apart from slight plot and pacing flaws, this is genuinely a very creative and enjoyable book. I can see some people being uninterested in the whole 'dodging the King' plot point (after all, it is a given that she will become the Queen of Hearts) but as I said, the world of Wonderland is very creative and the characters are similarly quite likeable. The tone of Wonderland is also handled very well, with enough nonsensical elements to feel like the original book but also a coherent story and characters with coherent goals. It may be a bit of a slow journey but this is a wonderful world to be in. I found it to be worth the slower elements for the character-driven story and the ultimate plot at the end. I just wish that ultimate plot had been given the time to be explored properly.

Overall Rating:

.5