BOOK REVIEW: After Alice, by Gregory Maguire

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BOOK REVIEW: After Alice, by Gregory MaguireTitle: After Alice by Gregory Maguire
Published by William Morrow
Published: October 27th 2015
Genres: Fiction, Retellings
Pages: 288
Format: eBook, Hardcover
Source: Edelweiss, Library
Buy: Bookshop(afflilate link)
Goodreads

From the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Wicked comes a magical new twist on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis's Carroll's beloved classic. When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice's disappearance?

In this brilliant new work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings — and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll's enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice's mentioned briefly in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late — and tumbles down the rabbit hole herself. Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Euridyce can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is After Alice.

Our private lives are like a colony of worlds expanding, contracting, breathing universal air into separate knowledges. Or like several packs of cards shuffled together by an expert anonymous hand, and dealt out in a random, amused or even hostile way.

In his previous retellings of famous fairy tales and stories, Gregory Maguire has a tell-tale style that draws you in, hooks you, and doesn’t let you go until he’s finished telling his story. I found After Alice to be lacking this particularly in Ada’s story. I think had it been more focused on Lydia’s becoming the woman of the house and the struggles she finds with that at the tender age of fifteen, or of Siam’s story as a former slave from Georgia, or of Darwin’s particular visit to the house that day I would have liked it more, but Ada’s part of the story (which should have been the most interesting) fell flat. I did particularly like Maguire’s take on the Jabberwocky, the bits and people about Oxford that were to come (which bordered on metafiction), and there were some lines that resonated with me. Otherwise, I felt that this was a draft of some kind with no real cohesion.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the review copy!

Personal Reading Challenge~

For the rest of July (the 10th through the 31st), I’ve given myself a personal reading challenge! I love Urban Decay’s lipsticks, and I really want the UD Naked Smoky palette, so I’m using those things as my motivation. Each day I have to read at least 200 pages with a total of 4,400 pages read by 31 July. If I reach that goal, I can treat myself to a new lipstick color! If I exceed those 4,400 pages by at least 1,600 pages, I can get the new Naked Smoky palette!

The main reason for this little personal challenge of mine is that I’m spending too much time browsing the internet and not reading when I have all of these books on my shelves, from the library, and from NetGalley that I want to read! Time just seems to slip away. I don’t like that.

I’m currently reading four books: Heller’s Catch-22, Le Carré’s The Night Manager, Chu’s Time Salvager, and Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Two of those I’ve been picking at since March and April, one’s an ARC I received from a Goodreads giveaway that I want to read and review in a timely manner, and this summer I’m doing a Harry Potter reread!

It’s been easy to meet the goal today thanks to Harry Potter, because today I’ve read at least a third of Prisoner of Azkaban and more than 200 pages of Goblet of Fire. I’ve even managed to squeeze in about fifty pages of Catch-22 in an effort to get that book done and finally be able to say I’ve read it (there’s something about American fiction in certain decades that doesn’t really resonate with me too much, and Catch-22 is one of them, particularly on the grounds of its military focus). Either way, it’s nice to spend a day off mostly reading and it’s nice to be ahead, especially if I want that makeup!

And! I finally figured out child themes! Pink is one of my least favorite colors and that was the main color of this theme, so I’m glad to have something a bit more to my liking! And it wasn’t difficult at all. Thanks, Google and YouTube! Maybe I’ll be more inclined to post more often now that I don’t have to keep looking at pink all the time.

Hello Universe!

I’ve been procrastinating long enough! Too much thinking, not enough productivity. I’m going to try to post twice a week about what I’m reading, whether it’s an actual review or something else book-related! I’ve got so many things to read, so many things I want to read, and I want to keep up my smarts when it comes to writing about books. I can’t let that MA I’ve earned just linger there. In addition to writing about books and writing, I also hope to document in some form my journey to earning my PhD. That’s still some time coming, and I hope the process is relatively steady. There’s just a lot to do between now and then!

I have a few eARCs from Netgalley to read soon, of which I’m especially looking forward to reading Libba Bray’s Lair of Dreams and Jessica Day George’s Silver in the Blood. I also checked out a huge stack of books from the library, and there’s a few I’ve checked out that I’ll have posts about soon.

Until next time!