Heartless, Marissa Meyer

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland and a favorite of the unmarried King, but her interest lie elsewhere. A talented baker, she wants to open a shop and create delectable pastries. But for her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for a woman who could be a queen.

BBreview 3.5 stars.

We All know Meyer from her great series The Lunar Chronicles. I personally loved the books And when I saw this one our I just had to get it not only to add it to my collection of my favorite authors but to also read it because I a a BIG Alice In Wonderland fan! So If you have not figured out my disappointment in this book yet then be prepared because its coming.

In the first chapter we meet our main character Catherine Pinkerton of Rock Turtle Cove. She dreams of being a baker with her best friend and maid servant Mary An, though it is just fools dream why not dream it (right?!?). So Catherine and her parents go to a ball at the Kings Palace in Red Hearts Kingdom, There she finds out from Cheshire (the disappearing cat) That the King is going to ask her out of everyone to Marry him and become the red Queen. panicked and scared Catherine runs out and meets the court joker--Jest and his pet- So of course she falls in love with him and turns out he just wants her for her heart. In the end they run off together only to have Jest head cut off at the very end and Catherine turn into the mad Queen "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" demon we all love and know.

SO The Pros and Cons of this book:

Pros:

* Great characters such as Hatta, Cheshire, The Caterpillar, and the Jabberwock

(That's it.)

Cons: (Things that annoyed me throughout the whole book!)

Jest Crow Meyer had him quoting Edgar A. Poe throughout the whole book which was annoying and totally ruined the mood of the whole thing. I Love Poe BUT I don't like other people using his "The Raven" As something like this. The Raven is a dark Gothic tale that should be read while in a dark room only lit by candles. This right here was Meyer did was make him look a little "haha funny."

The main character Catherine Pinkerton was called "Cath" not Cathy or anything else just Cath and I found myself replacing the Cath with Catherine throughout the whole book. If you are going to give them a name that can become a nickname then you need to give them a name with a good nickname term.

Hatter was as ass! he was rude always pissed off never the fun loving person we know from the old stories.

talking in poem terms is not as good in a fiction story as it is in an actual poem.

the story follows WAY to close to the new version of the Alice in Wonderland movies. I did not like this and it made the story harder for me to read.

I did not see no real point in this book at all.

Why did I post this , the villain from the movie? well because there is also a Jack in Heartless who also wears an eye patch and is rude and evil just like in the movie. When Meyer first described this character This is who I saw pop into my head. This was the first clue that dropped my interest with the book.

"As It so happens Mr. Jest, I've sometimes come to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast." hmmmm where have we heard this saying before?!? oh yes the movie. Alice said this same saying alot during the first movie so clearly this through me off too I hated having to read that again and again as through Meyer believed she came up with it herself. Once she added this to the story the plot changed from Catherine wanting to be a baker to the queen to thinking of impossible things with her lover Jest. As I said before this book had no real plot interest.

"One of the footmen, a tree frog dressed in a powdered wig and a royal red coat double-breasted in gold buttons."

I think the frog could of been more of a character Meyer made up instead of the original frog from the book and the movies. I believe this would of spiked a better interest take with me as a reader.

my version of the frog. " The hall was lined with footmen, a frog who was dressed in a black and white servant vest with a black wig and white boy looked at me with his yellow green eyes, his slimy skin was the color of the darkest forest green with just a hint of yellow spots, his fingers where long with small circle points at the end and his smile which reached from eye to eye looked more like hatred than a smile at all." now that right there would of had me wanting to read more into the story than anything else.

Now the thing here is The Jabberwock which was first brought in from the movie (no I am not comparing the movie to this book). Anyways, so Meyer went back to talking about Catherine baking and loving jest but then at the VERY end of this story she decided to add a mystery to a book that already does not have a good story line to begin with. In this book The Jabberwock is killing people an eating them like crazy, no one has seen one in years. So the only way to kill this is yup...the sword from the movie. and instead of Alice being the one to kill it it was Catherine who killed it. Instead I believe she should have taken control of it and kept it as the pet, because come on if you are going to follow the movie this close why not steal one more thing and add it too. Anyways so the mystery is that this is not an actual Jabberwock. Apparently Hatter threw pumpkin seeds into Peter Peter's (stupid name) pumpkin patch and it ended up turning his wife into this beast which we don't find out about until THE LAST 10 chapters of the book (boring plot twist,) AND don't let me forget the Caterpillar "Who are you" smoking his pipe. I HATED THIS CHARACTER!

So lastly I do not think that Meyer did such a hot job with this book as she did with the Lunar books. I believe she should stick to the things she can make up and not to the things that she can copy from different books and movie(s).

its an ok different version to the story but I mean it could of been better. I just could not read this as much as I had hoped for.

I don't recommend it to my readers, but I do say you should read it to see what I am talking about. No one can really make the original Alice in Wonderland better than it already is.