Book Review: Splintered by A. G. Howard

Title: Splintered

Series: Splintered (#1)

Author: A. G. Howard

Publisher: Lumen (Croatian publisher)

Date: January 1st, 2013

Pages: 324

Format: Hardcover

Source: Borrowed

 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence.

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

Review:

So you think you know everything about Wonderland?

Then think again, because this isn’t the Wonderland you remember from your childhood.

Prepare yourself for the creepy, dark and twisted version of the happy place you used to visit when you wanted to feel better.
In this Wonderland, White Rabbit is a skeleton-looking faery with horns, and here, flowers wait to eat everyone who step on their theritory.

Alyssa Gardner is a great, great, granddaughter of the real Alice, who once visited Wonderland.

Women in her family are cursed. They can hear bugs and flowers, and eventually, everyone of them lose their minds.

Alyssa is on the mission: she wants to find the Wonderland and take the curse off from her family. By doing that, she’ll save her mother and herself.

I love this version of Wonderland.
The world building was amazing.
The logical aspect behind this world building was worth to be admired.
I really like how the writer portrayed Wonderland as a fairyland and all the characters from our well-known story as mysterious faeries.

The writing style was also beautiful. There were so many good sentences and quotes and if I read my own copy intead of the one from the library, it would probably be full of marks and underlines.

Our protagonist, Alyssa was pretty interesting to read about and in some kind of way, she was different from other female characters in ya novels.

There are two more characters worth mentioning: Jeb and Morpheus.

Morpheus was very manipulative, but because he is a faery, it made me appreciate him and I liked him as a character (when I look at the whole picture). As a love interest, he isn’t the greatest choice, but he is still better then his rival (if you can call him that).

Jeb, on the other hand, is the person I wouldn’t want for anyone. I didn’t like him at all, and honestly, just when I think about him it makes my nerves go up.
Why I have a negative opinion about Jeb will be discussed in my spoiler section.

There is also one character that I’d like to talk about: Taelor.
To us, she is presented as Alyssa’s rival and we weren’t supposed to like her, but I couldn’t help but to do opposite. In my eyes, she was pretty realistic and I actually think she tolerated a lot from her shitty boyfriend.
I feel like we all had to root for her to brake up with Jeb so Alyssa could be with him, but I actually rooted for her to brake up with Jeb so she could get rid of the douche.

The pacing was great, action packed in all senses. I even lost the track in some fighting scenes but it wasn’t long enough until I figured out what happened.

The only aspect of this book I didn’t like was romance.
In our love triange, I feel like Alyssa had an option to choose between bad and worse.

I also didn’t like the scene at the very end, which I like to call „The redemption scene“ (if you read the book, you’ll know what I mean).

Plus, I think there was too much cheese on the last page, if you get me!

Spoiler Alert!!!

Why I didn’t like Jeb:

He was in relationship with Taelor who he treated bad. He kept putting her on second place, made her feel insecure in herself. He went on prom with her but hang out with others and saved only two dances for her.
At the same time, he had no problem accepting that her father would rent a place in London for him to live in.