The Looking Glass Wars

The Looking Glass Warsby Frank BeddorThis is certainly an interesting take on Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking-glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This book is the first in a series by Frank Beddor about Alyss Hart, the young daughter of Queen Hart and how she had to flee for her life from her evil Aunt Redd on her seventh birthday. She leaves Wonderland and ends up in England in the 1800s (crap, I think, my book is two flights up from me and with my broken toe I can't just run up and get it to check, will edit this on my next pass by the computer!) and gets taken in as an orphan and then adopted by a very straight-and-narrow family who dislike all her "fanciful" talk about the imaginary land she has created.Meanwhile in Wonderland war is raging as the evil Redd has taken over and kills anyone who disobeys her. There are still a small group of people who call themselves the Alyssians and are determined to find the true heir to the Hart throne.The catch to this book? Think of everything you know about the original (and Disney) Alice in Wonderland and then promptly forget it. The Cheshire Cat? Really an assassin called The Cat, who is human but can take cat form. Mad Hatter? Hatter Madigan, the Queen's chief Security guy and Guard whose hat hides deadly weapons (like ninja stars, though I can't remember the exact word yet again... geez, what a horrid post, huh? Sorry!) To make a long story short, any character you thought you knew is changed drastically in this book and it's more on the Evil War side of things than the happy fuzzy, nonsense side of things.I still do not know what I thought of the book. It's been a few weeks since I finished it and though the book has stuck with me due to it's strange and at times, scary nature, I don't know if I really liked what the author did, or the story itself. My verdict is still out though I think I will try the second book in the series, Seeing Redd and hopefully that will help me draw my conclusions about the book.I did find Beddor's Wonderland very interesting and give him props for taking a traditional story and making it his own, but I didn't care for the implied violence that much (generally I never do) and I didn't really like Alyss herself.I would stay on the high side of the 9-12 category that this book seems to be in. I don't know if it is very appropriate for 9-year olds, though that might just be me and my prudish ways coming through. I am very innocent you know. :D I prefer snuggly, huggly things to war and blood.I suppose it did entertain me more than I might have thought if I am leaving the second book on my wishlist. ;)