Book Review: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by giving a plot summary for this book as I think every person on the planet knows the premise. However, for the sake of completion and satisfying my OCD tendencies... Alice is a young girl who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world, meeting lots of weird and peculiar characters. And that's it.


"We're all mad here."

Well, the Mad Hatter isn't wrong. I started this book excited at the premise of reading a classic that I don't recall ever having read before. Within about ten pages, my excitement had quickly waned. I've come to the conclusion that people who love this book must have fallen in love with the book as a child and therefore reading this book will trigger feelings of nostalgia and memories of childhood. Because I simply hated every minute of reading this book. I went to bed every night and would find myself procrastinating on my phone instead of getting stuck into my book like I normally would.

I don't enjoy nonsense. I like things to be logical and follow some kind of structure... I guess that's the scientist in me. Of course, not everything can be logical in horror books etc, but this was like a different level of ridiculousness. Nothing made any sense, things were all over the place. We were just jumping around everywhere and I just wanted the experience to be over. If this book wasn't so short, I think it would have became a DNF for me.

Oh, and Alice literally has to the sassiest, cheekiest, rudest little girl I've ever encountered in literature. What a brat. I just wanted to put her in her place for the entirety of the novel. Nope, I hate Alice.

The only highlight for me was the illustrations, as they are simply beautiful. So I apologise to all lovers of Alice in Wonderland but it's just not for me. I'll give 1 star for the story as I just can't allow myself to give zero stars... and I'll give 1 star for the illustrations. So that's 2 stars out of 5 from me! And a reading experience I'd like to forget.

Johann
x


Comments

  1. Anonymous29 April 2017 at 05:50

    Well, I didn't like the book myself. But I wouldn't say I hated it. Sounds pretty harsh. I've never read it as a child, however I've always loved the movies. They simply had so much magic to give. Then, when I first decided to read the book, I was surprised how confusing everything was. I started to have a slightly different opinion on Alice. But hey, after all, she's only dreaming all of this. And do you never have dreams that are just crazy confusing? That annoy you? That make you switch places, even worlds in split seconds? I sometimes do. And therefore I must admit, I can understand the book. Even if I didn't like it as much. You shouldn't hate the dreams of a young girl that's maybe a bit weak in the head (but still has some amazing, complicated intelligence).

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