Combined with the fact that I love fairy tale retellings, and it was inevitable that I would add this novel to my collection. “Sometimes a flame must level a forest to ash before new growth can begin.”įirst and foremost, Splintered has a beautiful and evocative cover.

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. 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. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. 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. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers-precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence.

Genres: Fairy Tales & Folklore, Fairytale/Retelling, Fantasy & Magic, Young Adult

Splintered by ag howard