3/5 stars.
Hardcover, 371 pages.
Read from April 24 to May 07, 2014.
I was torn between giving this novel two or three stars but I decided to go with three because the real fault with this book is that it just isn’t written for someone my age.
Splintered is a gothic and modern rendition of Alice and Wonderland. The protagonist, Alyssa Gardener, is a teenage girl who, from the time she hit puberty, is able to talk with insects and plants. All of the women in her family are inflicted with this ‘curse’ and her mother and grandmother have been institutionalized for these abilities. This curse, along with the abilities, is long rumored within Alyssa’s family to be in relation to the story of Alice in Wonderland, as Alice is apparently one of her great grandmothers.
Alyssa is keeping her abilities a secret from everyone but especially her institutionalized mother who hasn’t been home for most of her life. Between the stress of her family, tensions rising with her crush Jeb who is overprotective and the uncontrollable chatter of the critters around her, Alyssa is faced with a choice to end the curse that has plagued her family and save her mother. She takes the leap down the rabbit hole with some unexpected company and memories to a world that’s very different from the tale Alice depicted.
This Wonderland is a scary place, almost vicious, like that of a horror. The White Rabbit is actually rabid and missing some it’s skin due some inflicted punishment from the one of the Queens. The Mad Hatter doesn’t have a face but rather its head is literally a hat making mechanism. The Cheshire cat had its head cut off and half of his body has been eaten by a large and terrifying creature. The Walrus is some awful octopus hybrid called the octobenus and has an insatiable and cruel appetite. These horror-twisted characters are truly awesome and the reader can envision them perfectly with the author’s descriptions. It was a world, I wish I could have explored more. Instead, so much of the book’s focus was the weird romantic tension between Alyssa, Jeb and the netherling, Morpheus. I can’t ever recall as a teenage girl ever craving cheesy romance in my books but if this is what girls are into these days when it comes to novels then maybe I need to stop reading young-adult books.
This book had such amazing potential with its innovative setting but I felt it was ruined with lame-ass teenage romance. In my opinion, if this book had been written for adults and it ended up focusing more on the setting and Alyssa’s adventures instead of her love interests, it could have a been a really solid book! With that all being said, I didn’t dislike the book. I just wish it could have been formed differently.
The Pluviophile Writer 