I really enjoyed reading 'Alice' and was expecting a bit more of the same, but this book feels quite different.

Whereas Alice had me feeling like i was reading the adventure of an escaped patient from a max security mental hospital who hasn't had her meds and has gone into full blown psychosis, 'Red Queen' read far more like normal fantasy, probably due to Alice finding her magical abilities in this book.

Both books have been great in their own way and i've thoroughly enjoyed reading this wonderful new take on 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Red Queen' is a good ending to Alice and Hatcher's tale.

I look forward to reading more from Christina in the future. ( )

Bißchen düster und hat nicht viel mit Alice zu tun (nur die Personen tauchen auf), aber der Vollständigkeit halber gehört es in meine Sammlung

3-3.5 Stars
It took a while to decide what to rate this. While I thoroughly enjoyed it, Red Queen just didn't live up to my expectations. Alice was so wonderfully dark and twisted that I suppose I expected the sequel to be as well.

Red Queen picks up after Alice and Hatcher have escaped the Old City and are beginning their search for Hatcher's daughter Jenny. They're in for quite a shock as the land they've escaped to is in ruins. They expected beautiful fields, but what they got was ash. As they journey through the White Queens land they find themselves in a number of dangerous situations and eventually they are separated.

I liked the connection between the Red Queen, the White Queen and the Black King (you're gonna have to read to find out what that is!) but I wish there was more interaction with these characters.
Alice is supposed to defeat the White Queen and with all the build up to that final showdown the end result was a bit anticlimactic.

Alice's character development though, is wonderful. By the end of the book she's well on her way to reaching her full potential both with her magic and without. She realizes that she no longer needs to hide behind Hatcher, she can save herself if the need arises and stand beside him as an equal.

Speaking of Hatcher, I love the relationship between him and Alice. Both of them have dark pasts. Alone they may be lost and damaged but together they are strong. They ground each other and when it comes down to it, they prove to be exactly what the other needs. I was a bit disappointed that they spent a good portion of the book apart.

If you read Alice and loved it then you should definitely give Red Queen a shot. It may not be as disturbing as the other but it makes up for it with giants, goblins and some unexpected twists.

"She wouldn't cower. She wouldn't be afraid anymore. There were monsters in the night but there were monsters in the day too, and monsters inside people who smiled and showed you all their teeth like they were nice."

*ARC provided by Penguin's First to Read program. ( )

Another excellent story; However, I did not enjoy this one as much as the first book.

Alice and Hatcher continue on their adventures. They are in search for Hatcher's his daughter, Jenny, and along they way they get caught up on a battle between sisters and lovers and a whole lot of stolen magic. There are sad bits with character deaths and he burning of green, lush valleys. And a village has had most of their children stolen.

Alice comes into her own in this story. She learns more about herself and gains more confidence. And this is the one time where a love story is going on in the background of a horror/fantasy story and I don't mind. I have no idea if Alice and Hatcher will finally get it together, but I am rooting for them.

The story was good and had twists and turns, it just wasn't quite as good as the first book in the series. It's the curse of the sequel perhaps. Either way I will continue with the series when the next book is released to see where adventure leads Alice and Hatcher next. ( )

This book is a delight. Rather than just following some of the same ideas that were brought up in the first book, this story takes our main character (Alice) and her sidekick (Hatcher) through an expanded world. As with the first book, the characters are beautifully realised, the world building detailed, the pacing frenzied, and the writing captivating.

As one would expect for a book with a 'horror' tag, the story is quite dark, and the body count high. Here, though those targeted by the storyline are not young women, but children, and the themes explored are thus about a different type of exploitation.

In terms of the transformative nature of the story, not only are there the wonderfully twisted cast of characters that would be expected from a book that reflects Lewis Carroll's "Through the looking glass", but there are many many details that call upon fairy tale quest traditions, although mostly as if Alice were the third son, who always win through where the older siblings have allowed their arrogance and sense of superiority to overwhelm any better judgment that they may have.

I loved this book, and would recommend both this and the previous book in the series to anyone who loves Lewis Carroll's Alice, transformative works, dystopias and possibly horror (although I didn't notice it as horror, the classification of such is apt). ( )