Down The Rabbit Hole...Again

Unhinged by A.G Howard is a continuation of the Splintered trilogy. I have to be honest, I read this one fairly quickly and not because it was a "I can't put this book down" kind of thing. If I put the book down, I was afraid I wouldn't want to get back into it.

Let me explain...The book was not horrible, in fact I did like it. However, it has so many complex things happening that it's easy to forget what the heck is going on. Yes, Wonderland is one of those things that is supposed to be crazy and confusing, but it's difficult to keep up. I read the first book last year, and I never returned to it before picking up this one. So there were some things I forgot, and apparently these things resurface in the second one.

Alyssa has been crowned Queen Of Wonderland, which has suppressed the Red Queen's (Red's) power for now. The problem is Jeb, Alyssa's boyfriend, does not remember his courageous actions, or anything for that matter, from their last trip to Wonderland. Almost a year has passed and Alyssa doesn't want to bring back those memories, afraid he won't accept her and the world she came from.

But Morpheus, Alyssa's long time friend from Wonderland, reappears with startling news: Red has found a way into the human realm, and she plans to destroy those dear to Alyssa. She is back for her crown, and only Alyssa, the true Queen of Wonderland can fight back. But Morpheus's constant treats make it clear that this fight is not easily won, and it could be life or death. Alyssa must make the choice she dreaded: take her place and fight back in Wonderland, or stay with Jeb, her parents, and push her netherling past away.

My one suggestion for this book is to read the first one right before it. A lot of plot points can be better explained. The love triangle between Morpheus Alyssa and Jeb is so powerful. Jeb is the white knight that vows to stay by Alyssa despite the tension, and Morpheus is the mythological creature that foresees a future with her and he doesn't always play fair.
 The book left us with a great cliff hanger in hopes for a happy, or somewhat happy, ending. You root for Jeb because he is the wounded bad boy who would do anything for her, yet Alyssa has a netherling magic inside her that she can't escape.
I look forward to the 3rd one, I just have to recap before I start reading it...

It's The Only Way I Can Stop the Whispers...

Alyssa's grandmother, Alice, went insane after she "came back through the rabbit hole." These dream sequences were laughed off by all, but unfortunately landed her in the mental institution. Before she passed, Alice said that it was a family curse and all the women would succumb to this mental state. So it was really no surprise when Alyssa's mother, Allison, ended up mentally unstable. However, once Alyssa turns ten and she begins hearing bugs, she is terrified that this may be her curse as well.

Upon visiting her mother in the hospital years later, Alyssa is terrified when a dark force appears to be desperately trying to silence her mother, and she knows it has something to do with the curse surrounding her family. Her father is not buying into the curse angle, so he thinks it may be time to up Allison's medical attention and schedules her for electro-shock therapy. Despreate to try to get some answers and save her mother's mental state, Alyssa begins to dig deeper and try to solve this "wonderland" case.

As Alyssa sees into her past, she recognizes a dark figure that keeps pulling her back. In her memories, this feels familiar. It seems she has already been here; already been apart of the dream. Once she finds the portal to Wonderland, she knows this is her destiny. As she steps through, she knows she must save her mother and help to restore the wrongdoings in Wonderland. But, when Jeb, long time crush and best friend, leaps through the portal to help protect Alyssa, they both find themselves in a misguided world, with a possibility of never getting home.

Splintered by A.G Howard was really interesting. It did a great job of weaving in the Alice and Wonderland tale, and creating a whole gothic world surrounding it. It took me a while to read this one, not because it was bad, but because it was more complex than I expected. Being that the only free reading I do is at the gym, this one took some thinking. At times I felt it slipped a little too much into a typical romance; Jeb's love for her shines through and he is always acting as protector. There are points of the story that revolve too heavily on their suppressed romance for each other, and I think these were the points that were kind of off putting. I love a romance as much as anyone, but some parts seemed like it pulled back into the teenage "soft core porn" just for the sake of doing it. Plus, when the knight in shining armor seems too good to be true, it turns unrealistic.

However, Howard pulled me back in with the dark fantasy that is Wonderland. There are sexy, dark characters involved in this world, and Alyssa has to discover that she is part of this. There are parts of her that belong, and that is scary to her and to the existence of the this realm. The journey was not at all expected, but the end turned out somewhat how I imagined. The great part of this book was truly the whole back story of Wonderland. It adds in a new creepy factor to the whole Lewis Carrol story, and I think if you go in thinking and hoping for that, then you won't be disappointed. Look past the coincidences and easy escapes, and just take in the landscape and the darkness following.