Review: Alice by Christina Henry

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside.In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn't remember why she's in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood...Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.

Oh wow... what did I just read? I don't even know where to begin. I can assure you I am not very familiar with retellings. The only one I have read is Beastly and some other not much known ones. I am still to read some in the future, they are on my shelf, such as the Lunar Chronicles. But I was really eager for this one. A retelling and a horror... this I needed to read. And it has been unlike anything I have ever read...

While its a retelling, it is rather loosely based on Alice in wonderland, it is not much like the story. You will recognise the characters and that's almost it. It draws you in from the start. Alice is in a mental hospital because of something horrific that seems to have happened to her that she can not recall, beside the fact it was something to do with the Rabbit. There she befriends the person in the room next to hers, Hatcher. He however seems to have his own problems and even tho he tells Alice he has murdered people she finds herself drawn to him,

When a fire starts in the institute he saves her and they escape the hospital and the fire together. They flee into the Old City a rather scary, dangerous and disturbing place. Much much different from the wonderland in Alice.

What surprised me quite a bit was how gory this book actually was. Heads are rolling, to name at least one. There is other parts I found rather uncomfortable to read and made me cringe at times.

I couldn't even tell you much more about this book then this, even if I wanted to. Because it was rather mental in a good kind of way. It was bizarre and disturbing at times. This is not my usual genre and its not one I am most comfortable with. It was just that little too wacky for me. BUT if this is your cup of tea in general then you will love this much more then me.

There is a lot of disturbing and dark things going on. Its a very visual kind of book and you rather need a strong stomach for it. Also would not recommend this to any young readers. The author has taken a classic story and has completely turned it upside down and produced a world like no other.

Dark, gory and bizarre.

Thank you to Lydia at Titan Books for my copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Alice will be released on 28th of June.

Weekly Wrap Up and Stacking the Shelves #27

Weekly Wrap Up...

I really wanted to finish 3 books this week, however I am about 80 pages short of finishing my second one, so its my usual 2 this week. I have a really busy week next week too, including 2 nights in Ireland which I am really excited about so wont be managing much reading.

The two books I have finished this week are Sing by Vivi Greene and Under Rose-Tainted Skies. Sing was so much fun and I really loooooved Under Rose-Tainted skies, my reviews will follow soon.

America’s most famous pop star flees the spotlight to recover from her latest break-up in Maine—only to fall for a local boy and be faced with an impossible choice at the end of the summer: her new guy, or her music.

Multiplatinum pop icon Lily Ross’s biggest hits and biggest heartbreaks (because they are one and the same):


1. AGONY. (That feeling when her ex ripped her heart out of her chest and she never saw it coming.)
2. GHOSTS. (Because even famous people are ghosted by guys sometimes. And it sucks just as much.)
3. ONCE BITTEN. (As in: twice shy. Also, she’s never dating an actor or a musician ever again.)


But this summer’s going to be different. After getting her heart shattered, Lily is taking herself out of the spotlight and heading to a small island in middle-of-nowhere Maine with her closest friends. She has three months until her fall tour starts-three months to focus on herself, her music, her new album. Anything but guys.


That is . . . until Lily meets sweet, down-to-earth local Noel Bradley, who is so different from anyone she’s ever dated. Suddenly, Lily’s “summer of me” takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself falling deeper and harder than ever before. But Noel isn’t interested in the limelight. She loves Noel-but she loves her fans, too. And come August, she may be forced to choose. 

Agoraphobia confines Norah to the house she shares with her mother.

For her, the outside is sky glimpsed through glass, or a gauntlet to run between home and car. But a chance encounter on the doorstep changes everything: Luke, her new neighbour. Norah is determined to be the girl she thinks Luke deserves: a ‘normal’ girl, her skies unfiltered by the lens of mental illness. Instead, her love and bravery opens a window to unexpected truths …

An important and uplifting debut from a British author, which tackles mental health issues such as agoraphobia and OCD. 

Stacking the Shelves...

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

I have added 5 books to my shelves this week. The Trouble with Henry and Zoe has been send to me by Simon & Schuster, thank you very much, I am rather excited for this one. Am currently very much in the mood for romantic book, so this came at the perfect time. Another beautiful book that came through my letterbox this week is Always Emily which looks amazing, not only that but my little one is called Emily so I love it even more. Thank you to Abrams and Chronicles Books for this amazing book post. And the last 3 are the Grisha trilogy, which I have been eying up for some time. When my friend told me they are all only 99p each on kindle I raced to download them. Might indulge in those on my holiday.

Henry and Zoe have more in common than they realise. For a start, they both have pasts they'd rather leave behind.

After jilting his childhood sweetheart on the eve of their wedding in the small town where they both grew up, Henry runs away to London, planning to reinvent himself and start afresh.

Zoe has her own healing to do and so she plans to leave London, travel the world, and figure out just what it is she wants out of life. She doesn't know where she's going, but she is determined to go there alone.

If Henry and Zoe had met one year ago, perhaps things could have worked out differently. But that's not the way it works; they meet seven months after their worlds have been turned upside down. And four months before Zoe is due to climb on a plane...

Emily and Charlotte Brontë are about as opposite as two sisters can be. Charlotte is practical and cautious; Emily is headstrong and imaginative. But they do have one thing in common: a love of writing. This shared passion will lead them to be two of the first published female novelists and authors of several enduring works of classic literature. But they’re not there yet. First, they have to figure out if there is a connection between a string of local burglaries, rumors that a neighbor’s death may not have been accidental, and the appearance on the moors of a mysterious and handsome stranger. The girls have a lot of knots to untangle—before someone else gets killed.

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

Blog Tour / Extract: Alice by Christina Henry

I am totally excited to be part of the this amazing Blog Tour! On todays stop I have an extract for you of this dark and disturbing adaptation of Alice. Hope you enjoy it! My review will soon follow too!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Two vines exploded from the maze wall, and wrapped around her ankles. The vines tugged sharply and she fell hard to the ground on her back. Before she or Hatcher could do anything she was pulled along the grass and the roses closed around her.

     Thorns pricked at her skin everywhere, poked at her face and hands and the top of her head and wormed through her jacket and pants. She thought Hatcher yelled her name but she couldn’t tell, for roses were in her ears and her nose and under her eyelids, crawling inside her. She opened her mouth to scream and roses pushed their way inside, choking her.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. She wished she were a Magician; she would make the roses go away, get them out of this maze, fly away from the Old City forever and forget about the Jabberwocky and the Rabbit and Cheshire and the Walrus and Mr. Carpenter and roses, everything that could make her scared or cry or bleed. She would make the roses burn to the ground so they could never hurt anyone again.

Her hands were hot, hot with her own blood running from the thorn pricks in her arms down over her palms, and suddenly there was smoke, and a sound like a million tiny creatures squealing. Then the thorns were yanked from her skin and the flowers crawled away from her throat and nose and ears and eyes and something pushed hard into her back, and she was out, flat on the grass and crying and spitting rose petals from her mouth.

“Alice, Alice.” Hatcher’s voice, and then Hatcher’s hands all over her, patting and soothing, and then Hatcher’s arms taking her into his lap and rocking her as she cried and cried and cried.

All the strength she thought she’d found was gone now, smashed beneath the roses’ assault.

Hatcher rubbed his hand down her back and said, “Alice, my Alice, don’t cry. I can’t stand for you to cry.”

“I w-want to go h-home,” she said. Her tongue tasted like salt and roses.

“Where’s home, my Alice?” Hatcher said. “Where’s home? We don’t have a home, you and I.”

“Then I want to go back to the hospital,” she said. “We were safe there. Nothing could hurt us. Nothing could grab us and take us away.”

“Except the doctors,” Hatcher said. “Or the medicine they gave us. Or our own memories. We weren’t safe there, Alice. It was an illusion. And the hospital burned down. There’s nowhere for us to go back to. We can go forward. We can find our way out.”

She cried harder then, because she knew what he said was true. They had nowhere to go and no safe place to be, and they were trapped in this labyrinth by the whim of a madman.

“How do w-we even know there is a way out?” she said. “How do we know that Cheshire won’t keep us here, running in circles forever?”

“We don’t know,” Hatcher said. “I do know this. You’re a Magician, as sure as I’m mad.”

“Not now, Hatch,” she said. She was tired and scared and not up to fighting about this.

“Look,” he said, taking her chin and turning her head toward the rosebushes.

There in the hedge was a hole— a smoking, charred, empty place where roses used to be.

“Did you set it on fire?” Alice asked. “Is that why they let me go?”

“You set it on fire,” Hatcher said. “I don’t think the roses will trouble us any longer.”

At these words he stood, still holding her in his arms like a child. She never thought about how big and strong he was, but she was very tall and he could hold her like she was nothing, a little bit of a thing. He approached the wall of the maze, and Alice turned her head into his chest, her eyes closed.

“No,” he said. “Look.”

She opened her eyes just enough to see through the slits, and then opened them wider, astonished. The roses were curling back on themselves, rolling into tight little coils. Alice reached her hand toward the vines, her curiosity stronger than her fear.

The roses shrank away from her touch, emitting that high- pitched squeal, like they were afraid.

Afraid of her.

---

WWW Wednesday (29th June)

 WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open for anyone to join in and is a great way to share what you’ve been reading! All you have to do is answer three questions and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.

The three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading...

Agoraphobia confines Norah to the house she shares with her mother.

For her, the outside is sky glimpsed through glass, or a gauntlet to run between home and car. But a chance encounter on the doorstep changes everything: Luke, her new neighbour. Norah is determined to be the girl she thinks Luke deserves: a ‘normal’ girl, her skies unfiltered by the lens of mental illness. Instead, her love and bravery opens a window to unexpected truths …

An important and uplifting debut from a British author, which tackles mental health issues such as agoraphobia and OCD. 

I have recently finished...

America’s most famous pop star flees the spotlight to recover from her latest break-up in Maine—only to fall for a local boy and be faced with an impossible choice at the end of the summer: her new guy, or her music.

Multiplatinum pop icon Lily Ross’s biggest hits and biggest heartbreaks (because they are one and the same):


1. AGONY. (That feeling when her ex ripped her heart out of her chest and she never saw it coming.)
2. GHOSTS. (Because even famous people are ghosted by guys sometimes. And it sucks just as much.)
3. ONCE BITTEN. (As in: twice shy. Also, she’s never dating an actor or a musician ever again.)


But this summer’s going to be different. After getting her heart shattered, Lily is taking herself out of the spotlight and heading to a small island in middle-of-nowhere Maine with her closest friends. She has three months until her fall tour starts-three months to focus on herself, her music, her new album. Anything but guys.


That is . . . until Lily meets sweet, down-to-earth local Noel Bradley, who is so different from anyone she’s ever dated. Suddenly, Lily’s “summer of me” takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself falling deeper and harder than ever before. But Noel isn’t interested in the limelight. She loves Noel-but she loves her fans, too. And come August, she may be forced to choose. 

I plan on reading next...

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly.
Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?

Review: The Witche's Kiss by Katharine & Elizabeth Corr

Sixteeen-year-old Meredith is fed-up with her feuding family and feeling invisible at school – not to mention the witch magic that shoots out of her fingernails when she’s stressed. Then sweet, sensitive Jack comes into her life and she falls for him hard. The only problem is that he is periodically possessed by a destructive centuries-old curse. Meredith has lost her heart, but will she also lose her life? Or in true fairytale tradition, can true love’s kiss save the day?

Oh wow, how I needed this! Lately all I have been reading is rather heavy and dark reads, so this is something that came at just the right time. Look at this cover!!! Its so obviously whats sold me this book and why I just needed to read it.

Meredith lives with her brother and her mother, although the mother is always absent working abroad. She is a witch, but has never been trained because her mother does not wish her to be. Being a witch has been past on for generations and is the reason why her mother argues with her grandmother. Meredith keeps dreaming about a boy she has never seen before and off places she has never seen. When her and her brother hear a strange knock from their loft they go and investigate and from then on Meredith's life is turned upside down. With the help of her grandma she discovers that she is destined to bring down someone evil, someone who has also cursed Jack many centuries ago. But Jack is so much more then she could ever possibly imagine.

This is a retelling but this is only really visible in some places and while I haven't got much experience with those I have enjoyed recognising some bits from the fairytale while still reading a completely different story.

I will be honest, this is not the best book I have read and it hasn't blown me of my feet. BUT I did really enjoy it. This is a nice and light read that was a lot of fun. I really loved the relationship between Meredith and her brother. But I am always a little annoyed when the books include absent parents. The world building was rather good and I am a fan of the switches between the past and the present. I think they have been integrated in a way that was really easy to follow and suited the whole story rather well.

All in all I have had a great time reading this. I am a big lover of all magic and witches. And of course I can never get enough of rather complicated love. This book has all the right ingredients for a successful YA fantasy, including a super stunning cover!

This is an adorable fantasy novel that will be loved by many.

The Witch's Kiss will be released 30th July.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for my copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Weekly Wrap Up and Stacking the Shelves #26

Weekly Wrap Up...

Its been a rather crazy week. Weather it was at work or at home. As a result it has been rather quiet on my Twitter and Blog. I am sorry about that, hopefully I will have much more time next week. I have only managed to read 1 book and unfortunately I have had to DNF one. I have managed to finished The Witch's Kiss and unfortunately had to DNF The Otherlife, which I am really gutted about.

Sixteeen-year-old Meredith is fed-up with her feuding family and feeling invisible at school – not to mention the witch magic that shoots out of her fingernails when she’s stressed. Then sweet, sensitive Jack comes into her life and she falls for him hard. The only problem is that he is periodically possessed by a destructive centuries-old curse. Meredith has lost her heart, but will she also lose her life? Or in true fairytale tradition, can true love’s kiss save the day?

Three years ago, Ben's beloved friend and tutor Jason died in mysterious circumstances. And he begins to wonder if his old friend Hobie had something to with it...

I always get away with it when I try stuff like this. Partly it comes down to sort of assuming that I'm going to. I've got loads of confidence. And Loki got away with everything. Well, almost everything.

When troubled, quiet Ben begins at the ruthlessly competitive Cottesmore House, school to the richest, most privileged boys, he is befriended by Hobie: the wealthy class bully, product of monstrous indulgence and intense parental ambition.

Hobie is drawn to Ben because he can see the Otherlife: a violent, mythic place where gods and monsters roam. Ben has unnerving visions of Thor and Odin, and of the giant beasts that will destroy them, as well as Loki, god of mischief. Hobie is desperate to be a part of it.

Years later, Ben discovers his beloved tutor Jason is dead. And he can’t help wondering if Hobie – wild, restless, dangerous Hobie, had something to do with it…

Beguiling, shocking and richly imaginative, The Otherlife is about the darkest impulses within us all. 

Stacking the Shelves...

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

This week I have added 2 books to my shelves. Once again Maximumpop has been sooooo good to me and I have won a review copy of Sing, which I have now started to read. Thank you for another great competition! You guys are awesome.

My second book is The Book of Learning by  E.R. Murray. This has been kindly send to me by Mercier Press with some lovely help from the author. Thank you so much, I am very much looking forward to this. Thank you so much!!

 

America’s most famous pop star flees the spotlight to recover from her latest break-up in Maine—only to fall for a local boy and be faced with an impossible choice at the end of the summer: her new guy, or her music.

Multiplatinum pop icon Lily Ross’s biggest hits and biggest heartbreaks (because they are one and the same):


1. AGONY. (That feeling when her ex ripped her heart out of her chest and she never saw it coming.)
2. GHOSTS. (Because even famous people are ghosted by guys sometimes. And it sucks just as much.)
3. ONCE BITTEN. (As in: twice shy. Also, she’s never dating an actor or a musician ever again.)


But this summer’s going to be different. After getting her heart shattered, Lily is taking herself out of the spotlight and heading to a small island in middle-of-nowhere Maine with her closest friends. She has three months until her fall tour starts-three months to focus on herself, her music, her new album. Anything but guys.


That is . . . until Lily meets sweet, down-to-earth local Noel Bradley, who is so different from anyone she’s ever dated. Suddenly, Lily’s “summer of me” takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself falling deeper and harder than ever before. But Noel isn’t interested in the limelight. She loves Noel-but she loves her fans, too. And come August, she may be forced to choose.

Sometimes, it takes more than one lifetime to put things right...

After the death of her beloved grandpa, Ebony Smart’s world is turned upside down. Sent to Dublin to live with an aunt she didn’t know existed, she soon discovers that her new home, 23 Mercury Lane, is full of secrets.

Learning that she is part of an ancient order of people who have the power to reincarnate, Ebony quickly discovers that a terrible evil threatens their existence. With just her pet rat, Winston, and a mysterious book to help her, she must figure out why her people are disappearing and how to save their souls, including her own, before time runs out … 

WWW Wednesday (22nd June)

 WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open for anyone to join in and is a great way to share what you’ve been reading! All you have to do is answer three questions and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.

The three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading...

Sixteeen-year-old Meredith is fed-up with her feuding family and feeling invisible at school – not to mention the witch magic that shoots out of her fingernails when she’s stressed. Then sweet, sensitive Jack comes into her life and she falls for him hard. The only problem is that he is periodically possessed by a destructive centuries-old curse. Meredith has lost her heart, but will she also lose her life? Or in true fairytale tradition, can true love’s kiss save the day?

I have recently finished...

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside.In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn't remember why she's in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood...Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.

I plan on reading next...

Three years ago, Ben's beloved friend and tutor Jason died in mysterious circumstances. And he begins to wonder if his old friend Hobie had something to with it...

I always get away with it when I try stuff like this. Partly it comes down to sort of assuming that I'm going to. I've got loads of confidence. And Loki got away with everything. Well, almost everything.

When troubled, quiet Ben begins at the ruthlessly competitive Cottesmore House, school to the richest, most privileged boys, he is befriended by Hobie: the wealthy class bully, product of monstrous indulgence and intense parental ambition.

Hobie is drawn to Ben because he can see the Otherlife: a violent, mythic place where gods and monsters roam. Ben has unnerving visions of Thor and Odin, and of the giant beasts that will destroy them, as well as Loki, god of mischief. Hobie is desperate to be a part of it.

Years later, Ben discovers his beloved tutor Jason is dead. And he can’t help wondering if Hobie – wild, restless, dangerous Hobie, had something to do with it…

Beguiling, shocking and richly imaginative, The Otherlife is about the darkest impulses within us all.