Review: Falling for Alice

Blurb

New Alice. New Wonderland. New stories ​to love. 

From ​the modern Alice dumped in the Aquarian ​Age of the late sixties, to the ​present day Alice, tormented by body image and emotional issues, to the Alice of the future, launched forward through time and space, FALLING FOR ALICE offers five fresh takes on ​Lewis​ Carroll's classic tale. For 150 years, people all over the world have fallen under Alice in Wonderland's spell. ​Now, follow five Young Adult authors down the rabbit hole to discover Alice like you've never seen her before. One thing is certain-this is not your mother's Alice.

My Thoughts

The blurb is supremely accurate in saying that these are "new Alice" stories. I think this book was a worth-while read for all Alice in Wonderland lovers. While I wish the tales were a little more reminiscent of the story we all know and love, I can appreciate each of these authors renditions. If nothing else, this book will expand your thoughts on who Alice could be, should be, and may have really been.

Below is a summary of each story. SPOILER ALERT.

"Drunk" by Dawn Dalton:

This is perhaps the darkest of the five stories, but it's also my favorite. I feel like the character was both intriguing and disturbing. It was very unpredictable. Alice is a monster. She steals and drains people's emotions and longs for a male figure in her life, but when she meets the boy with at-like hazel eyes, everything changes. Her vampiric thirst subsides, and the emptiness her father created is now filled with promise and adventure.

"White Rabbit Rx" by Denise Jaden:

Dumped, lonely, self-conscious, and overweight Alice visits the Hatter High dealer hoping he can fix her size issue. He prescribes her "white rabbit," which apparently has a lot of side-effects.

Favorite line: "Nothing makes sense unless you look at it the right way."

She drinks the concoction that gives her headaches and heightened senses, but it also gives her a skinny figure. She eventually wants the pill reversed and takes something to make her go back the way she was. It's a story about embracing and loving who you are.

"Alice At Woodstock" by Shari Green:

Alice gets cuts from her own band. She doesn't play all summer and has sworn off music until she finds herself at Woodstock, where she's told to "Let no one steal your song." Eventually she realizes who she is and who she's always meant to be.

"Wormhole to Wonderland" by Kitty Keswick:

Alice is on the starship Jabberwocky with her own artificial intelligence, Dinah. Twelve females and twelve males have been programmed to serve a function on another world, including Alice whose function is to learn and create literature. The only problem is that she's a creative thinker and that's frowned upon by the Originators. 

Favorite line: "He's mad, you know. We all are."

This tale is the most like the traditional Alice we're familiar with. She falls in love with Hacker, who helps her escape and embraces who she really is without the programmers.

"Wonder in the Stars" by Cady Vance:

Alice's boyfriend convinces her to apply to the NASA teen mission to the Wonder space station. He uses her connections to NASA via her dad, who died on a space mission, to secure his own spot too. When he realizes he's got all he needs from her, Alice must suffer through the mission alone. In the end, she sees what her dad always loved about space and ends up being "the girl who saved Wonder."