“Long before she was the terror of Wonderland—the infamous Queen of Hearts—she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.”This book started off so well but unfortunately didn't live up to expectations further down the line. I will start of with the things I enjoyed.
There IS quite a bit of the goodness of Wonderland's nonsense. Not enough though, which is annoying to me because hello??? WONDERLAND???? There were talking animals and rhymes and a king with the brain capacity of a peanut, and of course the famed croquet with flamingos and a mad hatter's tea party. Cheshire was also awesome! He was a delightful jerk and SO much like a normal cat + magical abilities.
The dialogue between the main characters Cath and Jest is light hearted and witty and the idea for Jest's character was interesting. I felt that that romance element was a little rushed but I feel that with almost all YA so I think that's just me.
The beginning of this book surprised me with its frothiness. There is a lot of baking in this book, and the beginning was the equivalent of a strawberry cream puff, it was so lighthearted that the gradual darkening and the development of Catherine (she who is to be Queen of Hearts) almost sneaks up on you.
Now onto not so good things.
It wasn't nearly mad enough. I was here for people to be screeching with madness but they bordered more on just the "insufferably stupid" lines instead of "intriguingly mad" which I was hoping for.
The plot was so stupid and boring it actually hurt. The entire plot of Heartless is: a spineless whingey girl tries to avoid marrying the king but not by doing anything active, just by whining about it in her room a lot. Dude. Duuuuude. DUDE. WHAT IS THIS. It started off so well and interestingly with Cath being all "I WANNA BE A BAKER!" But it quickly dissolved into 400+ pages of her being a wimp who NEVER DID ANYTHING FOR HERSELF or stood up for herself or thought for herself. She was as interesting as a vanilla cupcake. With no frosting. Like seriously
I also just couldn’t wrap my head around why on earth did Jest (the love interest) care about her?? And yes he did sprout the "You're different, Cath!" line which made me want to throw a lemon at his head. Can we let that line die? Please? Thank you? But he keeps saying how she's brave and strong and clever and literally she just makes macaroons and goes along with her bossy/awful parents' idea that she should marry the king that she really doesn't want to marry.
I mean, this'll come as a shock but: I didn't like Cath. She felt so pathetic. Plus she could NOT do a thing for herself, like make a decision or a stand, until she had a boy supporting her.
This is silly but...I didn't like the names?!? I mean, Cath Pinkerton...does not strike me as a name for the Queen of Hearts. For example, Mary Ann and Margaret and Jack and Peter and Abigail....I'm sorry. Did we FALL OUT OF WONDERLAND AND INTO NORMAL TOWN???
It was terribly slow. See aforementioned point of the only plot is "avoid avoid avoid marriage" and none of that time is used to build up Cath’s evilness or latent anger management problems. One second the sweetest most girly baker imaginable to, only in the last few pages, becoming a raging homocidal tyrant? I needed a few more heads lopped off a bit earlier to make it feel realistic.
Also I am getting sick and tired of people using the Jabberwock as an antagonist in their wonderland themed endeavours. The Jabberwock isn’t a character in the original book, it is a poem told to Alice. It is fictional even in the fiction it is set.
So overall a really promising and light hearted read, that didn’t come through in the plot or world development areas.
Age Rating 12+. Nothing untoward but a few creepy triplets and one beheading scene.
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