Synopsis:
After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll’s paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland’s real whereabouts.
Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford University student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night.
The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamonds, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.
Review:
Wow, what an inventive retelling. Honestly, this was actually so good. I didn’t know what to expect from a book set in an asylum. Would it be offensive, would it take things too far? I don’t think it did. Although it does use a word I really don’t like, but it wasn’t said with malice, so it could have been worse.
From the get-go, Insanity was gripping. I often found myself flying through the pages and with the slump I found myself in at the time, that was impressive. The writing style was simple yet effective.
I love an Alice in Wonderland retelling, Alice Madness Returns is one of my all-time favourite games, and this was a great one. Having Alice be in an asylum is not very unique, but also having other ‘Wonderlanders’ with her was (at least I’ve never come across this before). I love that the caterpillar is a serial killer and the hunt for the Chesire Cat was so fun.
You meet many of Wonderland’s characters along the way and they are never what you expect. I still don’t know who Jack Diamonds is, but I’m interested to find out.
I left it far too long after reading the book to write this review (I wanted to take a break for the holidays) so I’m struggling to write this review.
Just know that this is highly entertaining with high stakes and eccentric characters. I will definitely be checking out the next book in the future.
Check out Young Creative Press on all socials
You can also check out my StoryGraph here
Like this post? Why not read this one too: Book Review: Dear McKinnon by Danielle Keil
[…] Like this post? Why not read this one too: Book Review: Insanity by Cameron Jace […]