Review: Wonderland by Robert McKay

Wonderland (Intergalactic Fairy Tales #1) by Robert McKay
Published: August 20th 2015 by McKay Manor Publishing
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fairy-tale retelling, Adventure, Young Adult.
Source: eBook
Find: Goodreads | Amazon
Goodreads Summary
Teenage Alice didn’t mean to end up on Wonderland, but the living spaceship she commandeered had other plans, and he was very late.

Abandoned on an unfamiliar planet, Alice’s first day as a space pirate has fallen into madness. Caterpillars? Mad hatters? A Jabberwock? A queen known for chopping off heads? Alice must face all Wonderland can throw at her if she’s to take back possession of The White Rabbit and leave Wonderland in one piece.

Wonderland is an Alice in Wonderland fairy tale retelling full of action, adventure, and unlikely heroes. While the Intergalactic Fairy Tales take place in the same universe, and occasionally have overlapping characters, these books can be read and enjoyed in any order.

---

I received a copy of the eBook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a big fan of fairy-tale retellings and Alice in Wonderland is one of my all time favourites so naturally I was very excited about this book. This is the first installment in the Intergalactic Fairy Tales series and I must say it is a solid debut. This book takes the characters and the quirky components that we know and love in Alice in wonderland and places them in outer space. At first I was nervous about the book and thought that the story might be a bit too similar to Alice in Wonderland but that fear was quickly dispelled as there are many elements that highlighted the uniqueness of this world.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to connect with Alice due to her young age and at times I had to remind myself that she is only thirteen years old when she did something that completely irritated me. In spite of this, I did come to enjoy Alice as a character. She’s imaginative and an energetic teenager who dreams to be a pirate and longs for adventure and along the way she meets and array of quirky characters. As well as Alice, we are also acquainted with other well known characters from the tale and I loved how involved they were in the progression of the plot.

There’s a lot of action to be found in this book and it was a lot darker than I expected it to be. McKay did a great job at crafting the action sequences, which were both gruesome and exciting and made you feel like you were right there in the middle of it all.

My main criticism would be that at times I felt that some of the chapter ended quite abruptly which halted the pace and flow of the story. This made the story feel a bit choppy at times.

However, the writing was very easy to follow and combined with the interesting characters and the fast paced action, this is without a doubt a fun, exciting adventure.