Heartless is the Wicked of Alice in Wonderland. Heartless tells the story of how the Queen of Hearts becomes the cruel "heartless" Queen of Hearts.
Personally, I love fractured fairy tales and fairy tale retellings. I have reviewed a number of them on here, and given high marks. To be honest, I had high hopes this book would be fantastic b/c a lot of the books I get from OwlCrate are great. However, a lot of people, especially YA lit fans, love Marissa Meyer. I personally think her ideas are great, but she's never been an author that has really spoken to me. J.K Rowling, Sarah Dessen, John Green are a few authors that I really like.
PS- The pictures of Heartless with the white covers are the ones from the November OwlCrate subscription boxes. If you look at the book on Amazon it has a black cover. I think it is really cool that the OwlCrate books are unique. The below quote and the letter from Marissa Meyer was also in the box. It was a cool box, and I am still a fan of OwlCrate.
Heartless by Marissa Meyer gets 3.5 out of 5 stars in my book review.
Basically, I just thought Heartless was okay. I like the story of how Catherine became the Queen of Hearts and how she became so brutal and "heartless." I liked the connection and the background on many of the Wonderland characters we all know from Lewis Carroll's story. I like the reason behind why the Queen of Hearts will have nothing to do with white roses. All in all, I liked the book; it is an okay story of a cool concept. However, it wasn't executed as well as I had hoped.
I did love that Catherine, was a baker. At the beginning of the book she talked about baking a lemon tart and the need to make it look good. Baking a treat that is delicious and looks amazing speaks to my baker food blogger's heart. Rarely do I read a story about a character that feels so similar to baking as I do.
One of my biggest qualms with Heartless was the fact that it was a plot driven love story more than a character driven story. The concept of Heartless is how the Queen became the Queen, but yet it didn't dive into her mind and thoughts like a book of this concept should in my opinion.
I also felt the book was drawn out and moved a bit too slow. I struggle with drawn out slow reads; my ADD struggles with that. All in all, it was just okay. Nothing fantastic, but I've never been a huge Meyer fan so maybe that was expected.
I'd love to hear what you think. Did you read it? What would you rate it? According to Goodreads and Amazon I am in the minority in my thinking so I wouldn't be surprised if you felt differently.
Just to give you a better idea of the story line I've copied Amazon's book description.
"Long before she was the terror of Wonderland, she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love. Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen.
Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.
In her first stand-alone teen novel, the New York Times-bestselling author dazzles us with a prequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
Happy Fractured Wonderland Fairy Tale reading!
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