REVIEW: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
Publication Date: November 26, 1865
Publisher: Macmillan
Source: Book Purchased by Reviewer
Buy it at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

Weary of her storybook, one “without pictures or conversations,” the young and imaginative Alice follows a hasty hare underground—to come face-to-face with some of the strangest adventures and most fantastic characters in all of literature.

The Ugly Duchess, the Mad Hatter, the weeping Mock Turtle, the diabolical Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat—each more eccentric than the last—could only have come from that master of sublime nonsense, Lewis Carroll.

In penning this brilliant burlesque of children’s literature, Carroll has written a farcical satire of rigid Victorian society, an arresting parody of the fears, anxieties, and complexities of growing up.

Carroll was one of the few adult writers to successfully enter the children’s world of make-believe: where the impossible becomes possible, the unreal—real, and where the height of adventure is limited only by the depths of imagination. 

For some reason, this book was an incredibly slow read for me. I just could NOT get into it and i'm not 100% sure why.

For what it is, I can see why people were amazed at the writing style in this book when it originally came out in the 1800's. Lewis Carroll, pen name to Charles Dodson, was such an imaginative and creative writer for his time. He took a simple verbal story to a little girl and turned it into a superstar book franchise. Can't hate him for that..

Though I have to admit that this book was not my cup of tea (pun intended...hehe)

It really didn't give me the feels and addiction I was hoping for when reading. I kind of expected this book to be THE happy place of all happy places because I just knew (or thought I knew) that it would be one of the best books i've ever read....unfortunately it was not.

For one thing, I always assumed that Through the Looking-Glass was kind of a continuation to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Now I find out through this combination book, that they are actually totally different stories and that all "Alice" movies have combined into one story. I feel a little betrayed about that, but I can move on.

I wish there was more detail I could give you about the two stories, but they were both so hysterically insane that I simply just can't find any words to describe them to you.

The only thing I can say about my thoughts on this book is that we did not click! Unfortunately so, because I truly had high hopes for it and am slightly disappointed in my regards towards it. But as I said earlier, I can totally see why this book was loved during its time and even can appreciate that it will always remain a classic!

Though I did not enjoy my time reading it as much as I would have liked, I highly recommend everyone to find a copy of this book (or its variations) and start reading a piece of history that is sure to leave you feeling, if nothing else, impressed!

REVIEW: Alice I have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Alice I Have Been  by Melanie Benjamin
Publication Date: January 12, 2010
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Source: Book Purchased by Reviewer
Buy it at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?

Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.

That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.  

For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.

A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire

I first heard of this book when I was reading an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine. After reading about the author and the story she wrote, I craved the book with a hunger that couldn't be satisfied fast enough. After a few weeks, I bought the book and began my journey into this wonderful fictional story.

Alice I have Been is about Alice Liddell, the little girl that inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland, originally named Alice’s Adventures Underground.

Without giving away too much information about the book, I’ll start by saying that the minute I opened this book I was enthralled in Alice’s story. When Alice is a little girl she meets a man names Charles Dodgson, who the world knows as his pen name Lewis Carroll. Upon that initial meet you can tell instantly that something is coming over the two of them.  Though unnatural for Dodgson to be so enamored with Alice, they are well able to hide the confusing feelings that transpire between them. After several years and meetings pass by though, the family as well as onlookers seem to notice the connection that Dodgson had with Alice.

This books definitely took me on a roller coaster ride of emotion as I felt the many joys and sorrows of Alice Liddell’s life. The book begins during her early childhood and ends during her elderly age, giving the reader a great overview of her life as “Alice”  my only real wish while reading this book was my hope that it was as real as the author made it feel. Of course, with the joys come the sorrows and I have to admit that her pain also brought tears to my heart. It seems that life during that time was not easy to live.

Thumbs up Ms. Benjamin…for an amazing and heart wrenching “almost” true story!