Alice I Have Been

A Novel

By: Melanie Benjamin

Narrated by: Samantha Eggar

Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole - and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?

Alice Liddell Hargreavess life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she's experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her 81st birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only Alice. Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her 10th year - the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.

That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice - he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice's childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.

For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.

A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.

©2010 Melanie Benjamin (P)2010 Random House

A Great Performance couldn't rescue this story....

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I have to no idea who would like this story. I am flabbergasted this book made it on to the NY Times best Seller list.

Would you ever listen to anything by Melanie Benjamin again?

no

Which character – as performed by Samantha Eggar – was your favorite?

the performance was great I can't say I had a favorite character though

What character would you cut from Alice I Have Been?

While all the characters were essential to the plot the plot was just terrible.

Any additional comments?

This story was a great disappointment.

Neo-Victorian Alice needs better research

I have to admit I've stopped reading. The interpretation/fictionalisation of Alice Liddell's relationship with Charles Dodgson is, as far as I've gone, intriguingly handled, not at all salacious, but the prose could do with some help. In particular, Alice too often doesn't speak in the kind of language that would have been used in mid-Victorian England. I stopped soon after Alice recalls a clapboard railway station. Too many good listens through Audible to bother with the second rate.

Didn't see the point.

Yeah, this one was just oh-kay for me. I did finish it but it was somewhat of a struggle. It was dreary all the way through with no bright points or even happy parts to speak of, waste of time if you ask me. Sad really because I had high hopes for it. Don't waste your credit.

so boring and repetitive

did not finish this. so boring slow and repetitive. frustrated I wasted money on it.