Splintered

4.8/5

My thoughts

Expectations I encountered Splintered early 2012 during a frequent Goodreads browsing. The synopsis was the only thing that got my attention. Keep in mind that the cover was not presented to us yet. The mention of a skater girl got me hooked. A family curse and the mention of madder darker version of wonderland made me fingers clicking happy.I forgot about it (stupid me). Thank goodness I saw the cover on Goodreads months later

Cover: That???s almost how I pictured Alyssa. A cross between the cover and Emily Osment. There is so much detail. Every time I looked at I noticed new details. Easily in the top covers of 2013.

Book: Close to a hundred years or more years ago a young girl named Alice dreamed about a wacky place and was published by a family friend. Ever since then her female descendants have gone insane and died as a result. Alyssa Gardner is her great-great-granddaughter. She too can hear the normally inaudible voices of plants and bugs and is next inline. A chain reacting occurrence happens. ??????Wonderland exists and Al can save her mom, herself and break the curse but is it really a curse or something else. Nothing is what it seems and maybe Alyssa as well. I WELCOME you TO THE REAL WONDERLAND folks.

Miss Howard???s writing style in splintered is equally part sensual ,dark and mysterious. So dark its sexy,.HAHA. You want to resist but you want more and more. To fly across the pages but take it slow ( I hardly did) and let the enjoyment engross you. I will get madder trough out this review. It was an orgasmic event but of words, places and scenery constructed with those words and many feelings. A wonderful 400 page book.

I read the original Alice and through the looking glass when I was younger. It was a Dutch translations but that does not take away that I loved seeing their dark and altered macabre versions. A lot made sense in a nonsensical way in the end. But every true Netherling knows it takes balance between a raging storm and calm clear water to be ??????sane???.

The plot was interesting. Mad even. I have to admit some parts might be confusing to some people. Maybe.

.'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.

But he still needs loving and hopefully someone will love him someday and he will truth fully love that person too.

???I think of his watercolor paintings; darkly beautiful worlds and gothic fairies weeping black tears above human corpses, these depictions of misery and loss are so poignant and surreal they break the heart??????.

Remarks:

4.5/5 Stars

As I'm sure you have guessed by now, this is another book that I totally judged by the cover. But I was not disappointed at all by the actual book. It was great. I loved the Alice in Wonderland connection but I also appreciated Howard's own take on the world. While I loved Alyssa and Jeb as characters, Morpheus wins it all for me. He is absolutely amazing and I love his characterization. He is just so obnoxious but also completely lovable at the same time. I may be in the minority with this, but I loved each and every scene with him. And his interactions with Alyssa were great, the teasing, the tension, and just the overall way he approached things with her. And you could argue that many of his choices were despicable, and he was often quite cruel, but I think his actions and his heart were in the right place.

As I got further and further into the book and you learned more about the curse on Alyssa's family all because of what Alice had done to Wonderland, you got a better understanding of some of the choices Alison had made to protect her daughter. Alyssa was determined to do whatever she could to protect her mom and destroy the curse. I think having Jeb come along was a way to protect Alyssa from going completely head-first into the battle with little to no concern. It also kept her somewhat grounded as she realized how similar she was to the people of Wonderland and just how well she actually fit in if she thought about it. At first Alyssa's blind faith and love in Jeb really bothered me, (probably because I hated his girlfriend so much). Even now after finishing the book and knowing everything, I'm still not really sure how I feel about that. Plus my obsession with Morpheus definitely influenced my views.

As for the actual plot of the story, after Morpheus explained the “curse”, it was pretty clear what needed to be down to “save” Wonderland. And like with all things, it was easier said than done. I thought the plot progressed realistically and I don't have many problems with the way things progressed. And I was completely surprised by the twist at the end. I didn't even have a small inkling that it was even possible. That unpredictable twist allowed me to enjoy the book even more than I already was.

Overall, this was a solid first installment in the trilogy and I cannot wait to find out what Alyssa, Jeb, and Morpheus get up to in the next two books.

Esse livro deixou-me com sentimentos confusos da primeira à última página. Acredito que teve uma quebra muito grande de expectativa, mais em relação ao romance central.
Não é também o livro com a melhor escrita do mundo. Em alguns momentos tive que voltar no texto para entender o que aconteceu com Alyssa, ou Jeb ou qualquer outro que fosse a personagem, principalmente sobre os figurinos e a aparência dos bonitos. Apenas o que ficou explicito é que Jeb é.... fora de série! (E torna-lo um sósia de um cavaleiro élfico, aos fãs de Senhor dos Anéis e coisas do tipo, faz a imaginação dar um looping e voltar. Adorei!).
O mundo criado por Howard e sua visão sobre como era o Wonderland, a forma distorcida de mundo, isso achei fantástico, mas ao mesmo tempo, macabro. Macabro e encantador a sua maneira. Em alguns momentos você realmente podia sentir que estava naquela zona.
O que decepcionou-me de verdade foi Morfeu. Imaginava que o amor de Alyssa seria, como tradicionalmente acontece com todos que tentam encontrar uma linha romântica no País das Maravilhas e alguma versão de Alice, entre o Chapeleiro ou Chessie humanizado. Não com a Lagarta. Embora o uso de Mariposa para descreve-lo, o cara ainda é uma borboleta. Uma borboleta grande. Sem contar que não consegui imaginá-lo como um galã gótico, com tendências obscuras, mas elegante como os grandes vilões do século XIX e XX. Imaginava-o como um híbrido de Merlin Maison e Laranja Mecânica. Sem contar que, pelo tanto de canalhice que ele fez com a Alyssa, um triangulo amoroso pareceu uma ideia muito fraca e clichê, como se fosse um pré-requisito para livros YA, então a autora o insinuou. Mas que não faz sentido algum pois ele não tem direito a QUALQUER MERCEMIENTO DE PERDÃO por parte dela. Não acredito que isso seja amor.
Continuarei a ler a série mas não está na lista dos mais recomendados.

I loved the premise and the book didn't disappoint. The magical creatures, the political tensions, and the family secrets made a compelling book. The love triangle was well done. I normally hate them, but I didn't hate this one.
My only complaint is the odd focus on facial jewelery. I found it distracting enough to make me roll my eyes multiple times while reading.

I'm looking forward to book 2.

This book review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Splintered

Alyssa's mother was put into an asylum because the bugs and flowers began to talk to her. Now they are whispering into Alyssa's ear as well. She's afraid to tell anyone, but when she visits her mother and they both hear the cut flower's words, things start to change. Alyssa will find that her mother hasn't been raving about Wonderland. It's all true. Her family is cursed and to free her mother, she must journey to Wonderland and undo the mistakes of her ancestor Alice.

Splintered is a macabre retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Everything you've come to know and love from the story has been twisted. The white rabbit is a skeleton with a flesh eating disease, and wait until you see what they do at a feast. The word twinkle will never mean the same thing to me again. But the story is just as beautiful as it is brutal and I loved every single minute of it.

If you don't have a taste for morbid or grisly tales, steer clear of this story. It is darkly seductive and will keep you on your toes with each new introduction to the ever increasing world-building. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Rebecca Gibel and she brought a whole new level to the characters with her wonderful voice acting.

The descriptions and scene setting are so well detailed, heightening the overall darkness and tone of Splintered. There is also a nice subplot of romance woven into the dark depths. While I generally don't like reading about love triangles, this was one I enjoyed. There's magic, mystery, and a lure of personalities I couldn't ignore. Definitely a series I will be continuing.

Este libro es un retelling de Alicia en el país de las maravillas, también va dirigido para jóvenes adultos y tiene tintes fantasiosos. Yo he leído solo dos retellings de Alicia en el país de las maravillas y ambos son completamente diferentes, la única cosa que es similar, es el espectro de enfermedad mental o locura que rodea a las historias, pero dado que Alicia en el país de maravillas (el original) de por sí es bastante insensato, no hay que preocuparse mucho por ello. La historia me pareció que agrego elementos originales.

El libro relata la historia de una joven que puede escuchar hablar a las flores y los insectos, eso la asusta ya que su madre fue enviada a un instituto mental por poseer ilusiones correspondientes a estas mismas características. Ella al ser una antepasada de Alicia Liddell , cree que todas las mujeres de su familia son inestables mentalmente y que tienen la terrible suerte de terminan en un manicomio, y eso teme que le suceda a ella. La escritora se plantea el tema al principio con esa misma base, la de desestabilidad mental, no obstante luego Alyssa Gardner, la protagonista, va a encontrar otra respuesta a esa locura, y va a comenzar su aventura por el país subterráneo.

Yo sostengo que los elementos del trama son los clásicos, solo que con un giro en el final relacionado a que hay un segundo libro por lo que la historia no termina totalmente ahí. Sin embargo el principio es intrigante, ya que te preguntas que es lo que sucede con su familia que todas las mujeres de generaciones en generaciones pueden escuchar flores e insectos, también puedes cuestionarte cómo se resolverá todo aquello y cuales son los secretos que esconde la madre de Alyssa. Hay mucho suspenso, y al llegar al clímax, en mi caso ya había construido mi teoría la cual fue acertada , pero aun así el clímax fue muy emocionante.


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I am not going to lie this book took a minute to get my attention, but when it did, there was nothing stopping me from getting caught up in it. I hurried from work to get the next book. I am interested. Very interested.

“Sometimes a flame must level a forest to ash before new growth can begin. I believe Wonderland needed a scouring.”- Ivory Queen.

I did not like this book. I did not like it at all. That is disappointing, because I was very excited about reading it. (I am a pretty-cover junkie, and just LOOK at that cover!)

Details:

1) Love triangle (please God, make authors just stop already) in which both of the main character's options are controlling jerks. One of them (Jeb, her childhood friend) is also rather bland and undercharacterized; the other (Morpheus, the shape-changing moth creature) is outright evil, with rapey overtones. I cannot articulate the depths of my hatred for the latter character, so I will not even try. Most of his actions are indefensible to a point that I cannot imagine how anyone, including Alyssa, could ever care for him at all.

2) Shallow female characters. We have: bland, swept along by others' decisions, largely lacking in agency (Alyssa); locked up in a mental institution (Alyssa's mother); jealous (Gossamer); heartbroken and imprisoned (Ivory Queen); evil and manipulative (Red Queen); beautiful bitchy prep (Taelor).

3) It wasn't all bad. The twisted take on Wonderland had its moments of beautiful, sparkling prose, and some of the creatures were interesting. I was fairly indifferent on the plot; neither memorable nor terrible, in my opinion. But the characters were a deadly hybrid of bland and utterly unlikeable, and that killed the story for me.