Review – Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles, Book 1) by Gena Showalter (3.5/5 stars)
Genre: Horror/Paranormal
Size: 416 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: September 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-0373210589
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The White Rabbit Chronicles
Source: Gift
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
This is the first book in The White Rabbit Chronicles by Showalter. The second book in the series will be titled, Through the Zombieglass, and will be released in Sept 2013. I am a bit on the fence with this one right now, it was very different than I expected and I am still trying to decide it that is good or bad.
Alice’s dad is super paranoid about all these monsters he thinks are out after dark. Alice and her sister think their dad is a whole bunch of crazy. Then one night Alice’s whole family is killed in a car crash and her dad is eaten by something that looks very monster-like indeed. Alice is forced to go and live with her aunt and uncle and switch high schools. There she meets a group of zombie hunter teens that can also see zombies and is introduced to a whole new world.
This book was just totally not what I thought it was going to be. I was hoping for an Alice in Wonderland but with zombies. It has zombies and a girl named Alice but the relation to the actual Alice in Wonderland story is tenuous at best. It’s more of a paranormal young adult story about a girl who finds out zombies exist in our world but in hiding.
There is no Wonderland, there is a girl who ends up thrust into a zombie infested world she doesn’t understand. So, I guess if you stretch your imagination you can see how being introduced to a whole new world in our world could be a bit like Wonderland.
There is a bit of a love triangle in the beginning, which I am not a huge fan of. There is also the whole super hot male lead that is also super alpha and bosses Alice around…but she kind of lets him because he is just soooo hot. Again I am not a huge fan of the whole alpha male thing.
The book was well written. Once I let go of the fact that this was soooo not a retelling of Alice in Wonderland but more of another young adult paranormal book I started to enjoy the story more. Showalter does have a very creative take on zombies in this book that I ended up enjoying.
So..uh..yeah…the book was well written and creative. Just not what I was expecting, I am going to have to let it tumble around in my mind a bit longer before I decide if I really enjoyed it and will read the next book or not. It was very typical paranormal YA and I am already reading a lot of that.
Overall a decent story and an interesting take on zombies. As I said above this is really not a Alice in Wonderland retelling but more of a paranormal YA novel with zombies. The characters are okay but weren’t super engaging to me. There were some awesome fight scenes and I did enjoy watching Alice learn to use her zombie fighting powers. I am unsure at this point as to whether or not I will read the next book in this series.
If you want to read an interesting YA Alice in Wonderland retelling check out Splintered by AG Howard.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
– 150+ Reading Challenge
– Paranormal Reading Challenge
– TBR Pile Reading Challenge
– Young Adult Reading Challenge
