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r-chivesreviews-blog · 5 years

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Splintered : a rant

*disclaimer: --not spoiler free-- pls these are just my opinions, I hope we can get along*

Summary:

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

Alright, this is my first book I finished in 2019, aaaannndd… I hated it, yay! A friend of mine recommended it to me because she had enjoyed it a lot, but I don’t share the same opinion as her (sorry, Heaven~!). This is not at all formal, it’s literally ranting. I’m sorry.

Alright, to start off, our main characters here are Alyssa, Jeb, and Morpheus. I’m just going to start out with saying I did not like Alyssa, not even a little bit. She starts out as an edgy emo teen, and just delves into a confusing and indecisive person later on. She’s cool, she skates, she hates other ‘normal’ girls; just everything you could ever ask for in a protagonist. Although, I will admit it made me laugh to know that she wore knee pads and shit when she went skating, because that’s not exactly my idea of someone who is so hard. Saftey first, Al. Oh, my god. Did I mention Jeb calls her skater girl, and she likes it. Just… puke.

Anyway, she’s just so annoyingly edgy, just clearly not fitting in. People apparently bully her for being related to the original Alice, which confuses me greatly. How did they even find out? Is it even bullying just making shitty Wonderland jokes? I’m so confused by this, but apparently she just needed to be different, and needed to be an outcast. Honestly, it would make more sense to me if they just bullied her for being a goth.

Onto our first love interest; Jebediah Holt. Our emo hunk, one of Alyssa’s oldest friends. His character is pretty flat and boring. He’s deep, has a dark past, and he’s in love with Alyssa. Did I mention he’s unattainable because he’s dating a supermodel-esque girl who is a bitch to our main character for no reason. Seriously. Like she seems like she could be a nice girl. She shows remorse for some things, the only thing making her mean to Alyssa is the fact that her boyfriend has the hots for her-- and that makes him the dick. Seriously, I hate this trope of dating a bitchy girl to try and forget your feelings for our lovely protagonist. It’s just horrible ok.

Anyway, back to Jeb.There’s not much for me to say about him, I just didn’t like him at all as a character. Just his style already put me off, but of course that’s just personal preference. He’s just… alpha male. A Chad to the core. He gets angry so easily, so unnecessarily. He treats Alyssa like she’s a child, bosses her around even after it’s obvious that she knows what’s going on here. He doesn’t let her make any decisions on her own. If she talks to someone he doesn’t like, he fights them. If she starts doing something he doesn’t want her to, he just lifts her up and carries her away. He’s just so controlling and moody and I hate it. He’s also just really fucking horny apparently, always on Alyssa’s ass any moment he can get there, in completely inappropriate situations.

But to be fair, Alyssa is also some virginal teen who has never touched anyone of the opposite sex apparently. She gets all hot and bothered any time he gets close, and she hyper focuses on things about him instead of the WHOLE TWISTED WONDERLAND AROUND THEM. Anyway, let’s get onto the last main character, and my favorite; Morpheus.

Morpheus is yet another edgy guy in love with Alyssa, and honestly I just imagine him to look like Brendon Urie in his music video I Write Sins Not Tragedies. He wears hats all the time, and has gloves, and a British accent. He’s supposed to be the caterpillar, but I really don’t know how he fits in that role. He comes off more as a Mad Hatter type.

He’s the most confusing person in this whole series, because what the fuck are his motives even. They change at the blink of an eye to just random ass things, but he always has an explanation. Shit goes wrong and he’s like ‘yup, just as planned. This is exactly how I knew it would go.’ Like…. Please stop. Be a normal person, Morpheus. He’s a sleaze too, always hitting on Alyssa and touching her when she clearly doesn’t want to be touched. But, no, it’s alright because she only thought it was going to be inappropriate. Maybe just… tell her what you’re planning on doing so she doesn’t fight you immediately.

Did I mention he’s a moth? Cause he’s a moth. Literally, just stole the look of a human, but his true form is a moth. Alyssa is flirting and falling in love with a magical bug. Gross.

Alright, so the story I didn’t mind so much in the beginning. I actually really enjoyed the whole twisted Wonderland, and all the interpretations of it. I liked her going in and undoing what Alice did, but finding out things were not exactly as the famous story said. Honestly, I’m not really even going to go too much into the story, it’s just confusing as fuck, and the majority of the book is her just going around and doing as she’s told while she gets stuck in between two dudes in a pissing contest, fighting for her love.

The first half of the book really goes nowhere, and then in the last few chapters it seems like the author just threw a bunch of shit in to try and make sense of it all. It was awful, and barely understandable. Morpheus was apparently behind it all, somehow knowing everything would go a certain way, even when it seems like he doesn’t and he loses hope. Nope, he knew Alyssa was going to do what she did despite her making that decision herself (for the first time in the goddamn book, and still apparently someone was pulling the strings!)

Alyssa’s relationships with everyone were just so weak. She would say she loved Jeb and be in his arms, but the next minute she’s all lusty after Morpheus for seemingly no reason other than he’s hot and apparently they were somewhat friends as kids. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Morpheus way better than Jeb, but make up your mind, Alyssa.

She gets mad at our poor mothman and then forgives him within seconds more times than I can count. Oof, I’m just going back to the annoying characters, sorry. It’s just the only thing that really stood out to me, and that’s not a good thing. I can’t even remember half the plot because I’m just so pissed and confused at all these characters. Like, literally the only scene I remember vividly was Alyssa going a little crazy at the tea party and fucking belly dancing on the table while Jeb was all bug eyed and trying to get her to stop (but not really?), like I hated that scene so much. Uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I feel like I’m ranting and this is going on for too long and I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. So, yes, I hated this book. I thought it was awful, but putting those feelings aside… Morpheus is my daddy and he deserved a lot better than shit Alyssa choosing gross Jeb over him. He’s a fucking MAgIcaL MOtHMaN, ALYssA. JeB IS JuST aN EDgY ARtiSt SKatER DuDe.

P.S just learned its a series and OH BoY

#splintered #books #book reviews #rant #reading #sorry this is fucking awful #i didnt prepare for this #figured i would just let my first post be shit so it only goes up from her

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