Review: Death of the Mad Hatter by Sarah J. Pepper

Death of the Mad Hatter by Sarah J. Pepper

Published: November 29th 2013
Publisher: CreateSpace

Genre: Fantasy/YA
Format: Paperback/E-book
Pages: 333

Purchase: Amazon  /  B&N

E-book copy was provided by author for a review.


Book Description: 

The Jack prophesied: If the king loses his head, then the Queen with a Bleeding Heart would rule the Red Court until Time ceased to move forward. When a second carried on for infinity, every creature in Wonderland would tip their Hat to the misfit girl with a Boy’s name (or was it a boy with a Girl’s name?) who’d end the Reign of Terror. However, it all hinged on the One-Eyed Hare being able to convince an uninspirable Heir that the impossible was indeed possible—like stopping time—and that Love was worth a Beheading.

Heads would Roll…

Hearts would Break…

In the end, would it matter who Reigned?

My Review:

  In the beginning I couldn't really get into this book. It was confusing at times and the characters weren't really that likable. Like for the first five-ten chapters I struggled with whether I want to keep reading this or not. But I did. I'm happy I gave it a shot because towards the middle the story really did picked up and got a lot better and I actually started to understand what was going on and I had to keep reading to find out how this is going to end!

  This book is really unique, yes it's a retelling, but not really. It has a totally different plot that just happens to be set in the Wonderland. A darker version of Wonderland, that might not just have a happy  ending...or maybe it does? The whole idea behind the book was quite brilliant, something new and different. I really liked the prophesy part in the book. That was really something that kept me reading and wanting to find out what it all meant. But there are something thing I didn't really liked about the book.

   The characters were okay, didn't really made me feel for them,but they weren't horrible. Alice was a creative character but also just weird in a lot of ways, and it times it was to much of weirdness in my opinion. Than Ryley, he was...well a boy, but when I read from his POV I honestly thought it was a girl at first, maybe that's why the story threw me off a little there. One thing I didn't like in this book is the romance. In a lot of parts it wasn't believable, not strong enough to make me want two of them to be together. this is one of the main thing that prevented me to give this book five stars. 

   The story didn't really captivate me as much as I hoped for it to.  The whole idea of this book was really unique and interesting, I don't think I ever heard about a similar plot before. The book description really caught my attention, it sounds like A World of Wonderland gone dark, which sounds pretty amazing. I think a lot of people will enjoy this book a lot more than me. Give it a shot, especially if you love retellings.