A Blade so Black by L. L. McKinney
Published 25th September 2018 by Titan Books Ltd
Star Rating - ***.5
Goodreads Challenge - 10/50
Synopsis (from Goodreads)
The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she's trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew.
Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice's handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she'll need to use everything she's learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head . . . literally.
Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice's handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she'll need to use everything she's learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head . . . literally.
My Thoughts
I have a lot of thoughts about this one so I'll apologise now for what I think will be a lengthy review. Ultimately I enjoyed reading this one. I liked the plot and the story however, I definitely had some issues with it.
To start this book wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's marketed as an Alice and Wonderland retelling which it most definitely is, you could clearly see the influence of the original tale throughout this one. However, I was expecting the story to be much more fantastical than what it was. Really, this was probably what could be described as an urban fantasy. You follow Alice's two lives, her main one in modern day US and then her life in Wonderland. Now, I enjoyed Alice's time in Wonderland. These were the chapters I liked the most and I wanted more of these. I wasn't a massive fan of the chapters set in our world, some of the plot points within these chapters felt convenient and not necessarily relevant to the story. I did appreciate the fact that her mother was present and worried about Alice although, sometimes I felt Alice had a complete disregard for her mother's feelings. I know she needed to ignore her mother's wishes to further the story however, I think maybe it could of been handled better.
When this story begins we jump straight into the action. We have a prologue and then chapter one which is set a year after. There was little pre-amble, you were thrown straight into this world and into what Alice has become and that was okay but, I would of liked to have seen a bit more background to Alice's training and how she got to where she was. I think this would of also helped to have explained the mechanics of this world and Alice's responsibilities and abilities a bit more as there were times throughout this book when I found myself a bit confused as to why things were happening. I also feel like the writing lacked description and world building and I think, Wonderland especially, could of been expanded on a lot more. That being said, I enjoyed the way the author wrote the action scenes, which I think is why I enjoyed the Wonderland chapters more. They were really fast paced and compelled me to keep reading. As I was reading I also felt like there were a few plot inconsistencies such as, when we meet Princess Odabeth she refers to the Queen as 'my mother' and then a couple sentences later 'our mother' and this kept up for a couple of paragraphs. I'm not really sure who she was referring to when she said 'our' or why.
We are introduced to several different characters throughout this story, both from Wonderland and from Alice's world. In the beginning I liked the characters however, as the story progressed I found myself struggling to connect with them and I found myself not really caring what happened to them. I also found Alice to become quite whiny and self absorbed towards the end and this started to annoy me. The only character I really liked throughout the book was Hatta. I loved his wit and charisma and I can honestly say I didn't see the twist in his story line coming. I did really appreciate the representation in this book though. Alice is black so we have a black MC as well as what seems to be a f/f romance between two of the Wonderland characters however, this isn't explicitly mentioned on the page.
Overall you're probably thinking I didn't enjoy this one but I did. Even though I had a lot of issues with this book the story itself was quite enjoyable. It was a really quick read and I found myself wanting to pick it up which to me means I must of liked it. This is book one in what I think is a duology and throughout the book I was wondering whether I was going to pick up the next one however, that epilogue had me sold and, after that final line, I knew I was going to be carrying on with this series. Lets hope I have a better time with the next one.
To start this book wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's marketed as an Alice and Wonderland retelling which it most definitely is, you could clearly see the influence of the original tale throughout this one. However, I was expecting the story to be much more fantastical than what it was. Really, this was probably what could be described as an urban fantasy. You follow Alice's two lives, her main one in modern day US and then her life in Wonderland. Now, I enjoyed Alice's time in Wonderland. These were the chapters I liked the most and I wanted more of these. I wasn't a massive fan of the chapters set in our world, some of the plot points within these chapters felt convenient and not necessarily relevant to the story. I did appreciate the fact that her mother was present and worried about Alice although, sometimes I felt Alice had a complete disregard for her mother's feelings. I know she needed to ignore her mother's wishes to further the story however, I think maybe it could of been handled better.
When this story begins we jump straight into the action. We have a prologue and then chapter one which is set a year after. There was little pre-amble, you were thrown straight into this world and into what Alice has become and that was okay but, I would of liked to have seen a bit more background to Alice's training and how she got to where she was. I think this would of also helped to have explained the mechanics of this world and Alice's responsibilities and abilities a bit more as there were times throughout this book when I found myself a bit confused as to why things were happening. I also feel like the writing lacked description and world building and I think, Wonderland especially, could of been expanded on a lot more. That being said, I enjoyed the way the author wrote the action scenes, which I think is why I enjoyed the Wonderland chapters more. They were really fast paced and compelled me to keep reading. As I was reading I also felt like there were a few plot inconsistencies such as, when we meet Princess Odabeth she refers to the Queen as 'my mother' and then a couple sentences later 'our mother' and this kept up for a couple of paragraphs. I'm not really sure who she was referring to when she said 'our' or why.
We are introduced to several different characters throughout this story, both from Wonderland and from Alice's world. In the beginning I liked the characters however, as the story progressed I found myself struggling to connect with them and I found myself not really caring what happened to them. I also found Alice to become quite whiny and self absorbed towards the end and this started to annoy me. The only character I really liked throughout the book was Hatta. I loved his wit and charisma and I can honestly say I didn't see the twist in his story line coming. I did really appreciate the representation in this book though. Alice is black so we have a black MC as well as what seems to be a f/f romance between two of the Wonderland characters however, this isn't explicitly mentioned on the page.
Overall you're probably thinking I didn't enjoy this one but I did. Even though I had a lot of issues with this book the story itself was quite enjoyable. It was a really quick read and I found myself wanting to pick it up which to me means I must of liked it. This is book one in what I think is a duology and throughout the book I was wondering whether I was going to pick up the next one however, that epilogue had me sold and, after that final line, I knew I was going to be carrying on with this series. Lets hope I have a better time with the next one.
Overall Rating (3.5*)
