Splintered
By: A.G. Howard
A.G Howard’s debut novel, Splintered, isn’t your grandmother’s fairy tale. With the tag line “Welcome to the real Wonderland”, fans of the classic fairy tale are in for a delightfully maddening spin. A.G. Howard’s tale centers around Alyssa Gardner, the direct descendant of Alice Liddell, who told Lewis Carroll her strange dreams, thus inspiring Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Since Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole, all the women of the Liddell family have been cursed with madness: they all claim to be able to hear the thoughts of plants and insects. All too soon, Alyssa begins hearing the voices too. She’s determined to not end up in an institution like her mom, so she hides her delusions from the outside world, instead channeling them into her macabre artwork.
But what if all the Liddell women aren’t mad? What if Carroll’s stories aren’t stories at all? To save her mother, and herself, Alyssa must go down the rabbit hole to break the curse. She must right all the wrongs Alice caused during her time in Wonderland. But Wonderland isn’t the cheery place Carroll painted it to be: it is dark, wild, and wondrous. Guided by her mysterious childhood friend, Morpheus, Alyssa must pass a series of tests to fix Alice’s mistakes and break the family curse. Alliances are tested, and friendships are forged in the wild, alien world of Wonderland. Does Alyssa have what it takes to beat the Red Queen and save herself from the same fate as her mother?
A.G. Howard’s Splintered is a wonderful modernization of the classic Carroll tale. Howard’s Wonderland is dark and sinister, yet it still holds the magic of Carroll’s original world. Rather than re-telling the same story of how Alice must go back and set things right, I enjoyed a more modern character. Alyssa is a girl with a lot of spunk and style. She likes to skate and she loves to paint. She has always been ridiculed because of her family history and relations, but she deals with what she has been given in life. Once she enters into Wonderland, readers get to see her transform into a strong, capable woman that goes after what she wants.