Malice in Wonderland

An Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein steampunk retelling

De: Tabitha Corvin

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

What if Alice grew up in Wonderland, became a pirate, and fell in love with the Mad Hatter?

Once upon a time, Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein crossed each other's worlds and chaos ensued.

Alice has never wanted to be special. All she wants is to live her life in the Wonderland she loves. Queen Hart threatens her happily ever after time and again as she turns the whole realm topsy-turvy. Alice and the pirate crew she sails with are pulled into the battle for justice against the tyrannical queen, but who will rule once the Queen loses her head?

If you're fond of fairytale retellings with swoony fantasy romance without the spice and all of the angst and drama, read on.

Under the tyranny of Queen Hart's ruthless automaton army, hope flickers on the brink of despair.

An eternally optimistic Alice and the enigmatic Hatter form an unlikely alliance against the queen. Meanwhile, Dr. Frank N. Stein's monstrous creation threatens to tip the balance of power. When Alice encounters this being, she sees beyond his exterior to a glimmer of humanity, and nothing will stop her from attempting to save the monster from himself.

Determined to rescue Hatter's captive sister and topple the tyrant, Alice and Hatter set sail across Wonderland. Monsters abound and loyalties are tested at every turn. Alice and Hatter’s fight to save Wonderland sparks a rebellion against Queen Hart.

Amidst high-stakes battles and newfound love, Wonderland hangs in the balance. Journey into a world where whimsy meets darkness in this gripping fairytale retelling of found family and redemption in this Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein mashup fairytale retelling saga where love blooms on the horizon amid the threat of impending doom.

A cool concept that started rough and gained traction over time.

Oh man, I’m not sure where to start. So, the AI virtual voice audio book is terrible. I hope the author gets a professional one done or reads it herself one day because it did this story a terrible disservice.

Secondly, the writing gradually became better over time without overly metaphoric and flowery sentences that made little sense and did not move the story forward. The story became increasingly more interesting at about the mid-point but up until then I cared very little for most of the characters except the monster. He was the only one that seemed to have a legit struggle going on and we got plenty of insight into his motives and struggles.

Personally, I felt like the story didn’t really start in the right place. While I’m told Alice is this amazing pirate we don’t really see her be awesome till way later. Instead, we promptly see her fall off a boat she’s called home most of her life. How exactly does that happen to a seasoned pirate? In addition, I feel like an establishing scene where the team aboard the Wonder does a heist or job together would show in action their relationships. Alice would kick butt, Hatter would be cool and calculated, and the feeling of a pirate family would have been more visceral. We would have seen them be amazing instead of Alice just waking up and complaining about this mission to capture a monster. As a reader, I felt like we had no “normal” established before the world flipped upside down.

Definitely a case of too much telling and not enough showing in the beginning. If you can make it through the first third of the book it’s actually a pretty fun adventure.

Loved the story, did not enjoy the virtual voice narration.

Ok, first things first! I loved the story! It was awesome! It has one of my favorite non romantic tropes (and it showed up not once, but twice!) and I was so excited when I realized! I'll avoid saying what trope it is, because it is a pretty big spoiler, but I really loved it! I also loved the romance between Alice and Hatter! The pining is great, and I love their characters in general and how believeable each of their hold ups in the relationship were for their characters. I liked Alpha as well, he was an interesting character, and I felt so bad for all the pain he went through! I was genuinely surprised at the end, which is always nice.

Now the hard part... I loved the story, but I didn't realize it was a Virtual Voice narration when I bought it, and I... did not like it. There was one character who's name was constantly being pronounced two different ways thoughout the entire book, which was confusing and unpleasant. Some lines which should have delivered with a lot of emotion, such as a character crying out another character's name in excitement or distress, were delivered completely emotionlessly. Other times, the Virtual Voice would change tone to be a really girly voice for male charaters, or female characters who the voice didn't fit. There was no consistancy with the character voices at all. There were also a couple places where the voice turned completely machanical for no reason. I really didn't enjoy the Virtual Voice experience, and it is a shame because the book itself is so good! I already bought book two at the same time I bought this one, and I will listen to it because I think the story is worth it, but if I hadn't already paid for it, I would not have bothered with the audiobook, because I feel like, in this case, it detracts from an otherwise amazing story.