After Alice by Gregory Maguire (48)

From the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Wicked comes a magical new twist on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis’s Carroll’s beloved classic.

When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

In this brilliant work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings—and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late—and tumbles down the rabbit-hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is “After Alice.”

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (July 5, 2016)
• ISBN: 9780060859749

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Gregory Maguire is an American novelist. He is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and several dozen other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are inspired by classic children's stories; Wicked transforms the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaptation into the misunderstood green-skinned Elphaba Thropp. The blockbuster Broadway musical Wicked, at its height running nine companies simultaneously around the world, was inspired by Maguire's first adult novel. The musical is the ninth-longest-running plays currently staged in London's West End (as of September 2015), and the ten longest-running shows in Broadway history.

REVIEW:

Delightful and whimsical read!
Ada goes in the hole that Alice fell into. It starts her journey in the land of wonder. A strange boy follows her, and they become companions. Ada is Alice's bestie and she's looking for Alice.
Lydia, is Ada's sister but also seems to be her governess most days. While Lydia searches for Ada, and Siam and Alice even, the story alternates between them. It's nice catching both perspectives throughout.
I really love the nursery rhymes in the book though. They were so much fun to read! 
I know that many of you will enjoy this one. Whether you've read Alice in Wonderland or not. If you know of the story, that will be enough to enjoy this one.

3/5

**No compensation was received for posting. A copy was provided to facilitate this review. Opinions are owned by Freda's Voice.