Ever Alice book review [ARC]

Ever Alice by H.J. Ramsay
Published by Red Rogue Press on August 1, 2019
Pages: 347
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

Alice’s stories of Wonderland did more than raise a few eyebrows—it landed her in an asylum. Now at 15 years of age, she’s willing to do anything to leave, which includes agreeing to an experimental procedure. When Alice decides at the last minute not to go through with it, she escapes with the White Rabbit to Wonderland and trades one mad house for another: the court of the Queen of Hearts. Only this time, she is under orders to take out the Queen. When love, scandal, and intrigue begin to muddle her mission, Alice finds herself on the wrong side of the chopping block.

Ever Alice was an ARC that I was really interested in reading, the concept really appealed to me, especially because Alice is a little older in this one and is a little more aware of everything that is going on around her. I was interested to see what impact that was going to have on the story and all of the characters. This book definitely didn’t disappoint, I think there was so much going on within this story and I really loved where the story was headed. I do have a small complaint which would be that everything happened really quickly and some of the stuff wasn’t really developed and explained well. But I did really enjoy reading the story!

I loved revisiting all of the characters and hearing about how some of them ended up. I will say that it Ever Alice was a little confusing in the sense that the different characters were given “proper” names and they were a little hard to keep a track off. Also I think that the most confusing element of the story for me would be the Mad Hatter element of it all. I loved him as a character in the original but his change of character was never explained and I struggled to reconcile who he was and his reaction to Alice’s arrival. I think in terms of all the characters they fell a little flat in one way or another but I think the plot pulled the story through.

I think the best bit of Ever Alice would definitely be all of Rosamund, or the Red Queen. I thought that she was hilariously written and some of the one liners she had were really funny, I also think that she was one of the more developed characters and I really found I enjoyed her parts of the story more than others! I also really enjoyed the writing of this book, I think it did a really good job of following Carroll’s original writing style and mimicked the madness of Wonderland perfectly.

I don’t have many complaints about Ever Alice, because I actually really enjoyed reading it. I think my big gripe with the story would definitely have to be the characters. I mentioned above that they all fell a little flat to me, and although the plot and story pulled them through I felt as though they were a little rushed. I wanted more time with them all to learn about their motivations and what was going on with them personally.

I would recommend Ever Alice in a heartbeat! I really loved the plot and revisiting Wonderland, the book kept me hooked even with some slightly 2D characters. I hope there is another book to build on everything that happened in this one.

What do you think about retellings? Are they your cup of tea or would you prefer a truly original story? Let me know in the comments!