Mark This Book Monday: Unhinged by A.G. Howard!!!

For the first edition of Mark This Book Monday of the year, I'm sharing a review of one of those books in the very much awaited list! My favourite retelling or reimagining of an absolute favourite of mine as is Alice In Wonderland!



Unhinged: Bk. 2 by A.G. Howard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After Splintered that was one of my favourite debuts from last year when I found out that Anita was planning to write a sequel, I was very excited and very intrigued about how was she planning to continue the story!

I preordered Unhinged quite ahead of time and for once, The Book Depository shipped it quite in advance, so much that it arrived well ahead of release date (Jan 7th), it could have been a Xmas present even, because it arrived on Dec 26th!

As usual I will be trying to keep the review spoiler free, cause I wouldn't want to spoil any of the shocks for you! But be warned since there will be spoilers for Splintered.

Unhinged was what any good sequel should be about. Full of twists, shocking revelations, unexpected information and constant surprises. The stakes are getting higher with every turn of the page.

Alyssa chose to leave Wonderland behind and return to her normal life with Jeb and her parents, to try and save her mother from the curse of the Liddells. But Red is still on the loose and Morpheus is not giving up one his claim on her.

Unhinged focuses in Alyssa's fight with who she is. Her human half and her netherling half. She doesn't realize her strenght and seems to be scared of accepting who she is. She keeps on fighter Wonderland and herself and despite understandably not trusting Morpheus, she keeps on venting her frustrations on him.

Wonderland keeps on creeping into Alyssa's "normal" life cause quite a lot of trouble for her. And she keeps on finding out that most of what she thought she knew isn't right, and she has to face loads of revelations about Morpheous, Wonderland, her mum and her parents.

Sometimes I must say I wanted to shake Alyssa when she kept asking Morpheus for help and then treating him like vermin. I agree that he deserves quite a smack here and there and eye rolling more often than not, but you can't just automatically blame him for everything! But you cannot fault Alyssa for not trying her best to protect those she love from harm, even at the cost of her own sanity or appearance of it.

Alison, Alyssa's mum was quite a surprise. I had no idea of her side of the story and I'm so glad that we get to know about it and she and Alyssa finally have an honest talk! The lack of trust and truth is one of the main obstacles here in Wonderland, too many secrets leave Alyssa and the other vulnerable to Red and other enemies.

Anita Howard's writing is immensely visual, she brings to life every scene in my head in a way very few books can, and her Wonderland has what I call a Burtonian Wonderland quality: vivid, extra creepy and full of madness! And if you add to it a creepy clown toy, wood that can eat you and a zombie prom... Sometimes I fear to think what else she can concoct!

For all of you, yes, there is a love triangle, Alyssa is getting torn between her two natures and Jeb and Morpheus, but for once I was not feeling aggravated about it! I don't find Morpheus so irritating at all, but so far, I remain Team Jeb.

The ending... well that ending was freaking cruel and heartbreaking with a proper evil cliffhanger. But Anita redeemed herself with the final pages of Alyssa taking charge of her future, embracing herself as she is, human & netherling! I just cannot wait to read the next book NOW!!

More than well deserved 5 stars!




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