Review - Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Published February 9th 2017 by Macmillan Children's Books

Star Rating - *****

Goodreads Challenge - 43/50

Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A bestseller from 2016

Synopsis from Goodreads

Long before Alice fell down the rabbit hole...
And before the roses were painted red...
The Queen of Hearts was just a girl, in love for the first time.

My Thoughts 

I'm a massive fan of fairy-tale retellings therefore, Heartless definitely appealed to me. I've been intrigued by this story since it first came out and having never read anything by Marissa Meyer I thought a standalone would be a good place to start and boy was I right. I absolutely loved this story and I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially those who are fans of Alice in Wonderland. The basic premise of this story is that it is a retelling of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, I suppose you could call it her origin story. Basically in the beginning she was just a girl called Catherine who wanted to bake and this is subsequent story. Once you've read it the title will make complete sense.

As much as I loved this book my initial thoughts weren't as positive. Before even beginning I read the back and was a little bit worried as the synopsis seemed to imply it was going to be very romance heavy and I am not a fan of romance. However, this is not the case and although there is romance involved there is a lot more to the story then that. Also, I found the first 50 or so pages quite slow going and seemingly predictable. It took me this long to get into the book but once I got past this point I was hooked and the story has lots of twists and turns along the way. It kept me hanging on till the end and this was definitely one of those stories that kept me saying just one more chapter. I needed to know what was going to happen and I was holding out hope for a happily ever after.

I really enjoyed Marissa Meyer's writing style. I found it very whimsical and felt that it captured the essence of Alice in Wonderland well. I also really liked that fact that she included several original features from Alice, such as the Jabberwock and some of the riddles, but she put her own spin on these things to make them unique to the story.

The characters are now some of my favorites, I felt very connected to them as people, particularly Catherine and Jest who I adored. I felt Marissa Meyer did a fantastic job of making both them and their emotions feel real. I felt everything right alongside these characters and I admire her ability to write raw emotion in a way that can be experienced by the reader. I laughed out loud alongside these characters and my heart broke just as much as theirs did.

Overall I gave this book a very deserving 5*s. Although it began a bit slow the rest of the story definitely made up for it and I feel it was a fantastic insight into who the Queen of Hearts could of been. The ending broke my heart and I've never read a book before that's made me feel as much as this one did. It's a perfect story for fans of Alice in Wonderland and it's inspired me to pick up the original for the first time since I was a child.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

 Overall Rating