Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice #2) by Christina Henry

"Picking up right where Alice left off, the reader follows Hatcher and Alice in their quest to find the long lost Jenny and their hopeful search of peace and paradise. The reader as well as the characters quickly learn that life never works that way and what they find is just as dark and desperate as what they left behind."

3 Stars.

Pros: Not dealing with too many new faces, which is always welcome/This book was almost as bleak as the first and kept a good, steady rhythm going/Alice's growth as a character is a welcome change.

Cons: Having grown up with the Carol Channing "Made for TV" Version, I wanted the White Queen/Red Queen to be more interactive, frenemies if you would, but Henry takes it on a darker path, which is par for the course with this series/Again, it all seemed rather easy and convenient at the end there.

Full Review:

***SPOILER ALERT***

Having defeated the Jabberwock and all the local "bosses" in the Old City, all except for Cheshire of course, Alice and Hatcher go after Pipkin and the girls that they rescued from the Walrus. They expect to find peace, paradise and finally the chance to relax and live their lives. But what they end up finding is a desolate wasteland, burned to the ground.

As they travel, they enter a wood and Hatcher's madness takes on an entirely new level and he abandons Alice. She's forced to be resourceful and keep her wits about her if she wants to get through the forest. After befriending a giant named Pen, who was bewitched by the White Queen, the woman who rules this forest and all beyond it, Alice's realizes that if she wants to get Hatcher back, she has to defeat the White Queen.

Alice grows as a character in this installment and it's nice to see her using her brain instead of cowering behind Hatcher all the time. Though of course, the ending was all rather convenient. In a way it kind of feels like Henry knows she's getting near the end, so she just hurries it all up and wraps it all up in a pretty bow, just to be done with it. As with the first one, I didn't love it but I didn't hate it and I'm glad I read it, as I was interested to see where the dark twist of this classic tale would go.

I'll most likely pick up the compilation of novellas once I've worked through the many other books in my "to read" pile.

Comments

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