The frumious Bandersnatch!

Books of popular/famous stories retold from other perspectives are my favs. From John Gardner's Grendel to Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea to Marie Phillip’s God’s Behaving Badly and Glen Duncan’s i, Lucifer, Martin Millar's The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies, I dig em. Stories like this are sure fire ways to get my mind out of whatever hotpot it’s steaming, stewing and fretting in and off into a magical, crazy ass world. They’re like literary lorazapam.

Alice by Christina Henry is such a tale. I'd never heard of the author before but, between a snippet on the book jacket and that brill cover art, I was sold

This is Alice of Wonderland fame, essentially, but it's a whole ‘nother world. Wonderland is a filthy, fetid, walled off repository for all the poors, the illins (mental and physical), the evils and the Magicians (who are, generally, the MEGA bad guys). This is Old City, in contrast with New City which is gleaming white, clean, pure, wealthy and healthy. Old City is cordoned off to keep all the Major Miscreants contained and feeding off society’s refuse. Population control, eh?

Alice lives in New City. Her mischievous best chum, Dor (Dormouse,) takes her to a tea party in Old City. “It’ll be fun! An adventure!”

NOT!

This Wonderland overlaps with Lewis Carroll’s creep-fest poem, The Jabberwocky. LOVE that poem!

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!

While the Jabberwocky IS in the original collection of tales where we meet Alice, he’s not collided with Alice before now.

From Goodreads:

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo the screams of the poor souls inside.

In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place. Just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood…

Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.

Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.

And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.

One of the many things that turned me on with this story—Alice grows. She starts as this scared witless, passive thing and grows into a strong, careing, take-no-damn-prisoners champion.

Chapter one and two of the book at this link. See if you can put it down. I couldn’t.