The premise is that Alice (or more correctly, Alyss) really is from Wonderland, but Dodgson just thinks she is a little girl with a powerful imagination and ends up twisting her story into a fantastical journey.  The novel focuses on the violent political upheaval in Wonderland that led to Alyss’s exile into our world and her attempt to wrest control of Wonderland away from her evil Aunt Redd upon her return.

The book has some wonderful lessons about what it means to be a good leader, as well as on using imagination, knowledge, and technology responsibly.

The story itself is creative, fast paced, and entertaining.  My only critique is that there are a few moments when the description of White Imagination and Black Imagination comes a little too close to the Light and Dark Sides of the Force, especially when the narrator is trying to make the point that anger leads to Black Imagination.

Overall, I was very pleased with this variation on the Alice tales. It manages to update the story for an older/different audience while staying true to the imaginative foundation laid by Dodgson.

I love the concept, I adore the plot, but the execution…not so much. The first person narrator in this novel suffers from the same malaise as Bella Swan in the Twilight series…a crippling lack of self-confidence and horrible self-image, cutting herself down while aggrandizing and idolizing her boyfriend in the same breath. Ick. I have worked with high school students for nine years and have never known a teenage girl to feel like she didn’t deserve her boyfriend. Poor self-image–yes. Lack of confidence–yes. Boyfriend issues–yes. But feeling undeserving–whatever! Feeling privileged just to be seen with him, in awe that he could possibly like her–only in the movies and, apparently, angst-filled novels.

But back to the part I liked…The story is basically the classic Tam Lin fairy tale, but with a twist. For those who are unfamiliar with the tale, you are really missing out on one of my favorite fairy tales. In many fairy tales, the female main character is always acted upon; she is a good girl that bad things always happen to, but eventually someone comes along to rescue her. Tam Lin turns this classic model on its head. Janet is not a “good” girl, her own actions get her in trouble, her own actions get her out of trouble, and instead of needing to be rescued herself, she is the one who rescues her “prince.” While one moral of the story is “don’t go sleeping with boys who have been raised by fairies,” the story is also one of empowerment, that a young woman can take charge of her own destiny to get what she need and wants. To read the story yourself, check out this fabulous website on Tam Lin Balladry.

While Balog’s novel does touch on this same theme towards the end, you have to get through the mush of “I can’t live without him” and “I’m only courageous when he is by my side” first in order to get to that message of empowerment. And it is that first part that grates on me like nails on a chalkboard. Sad, really, because this is otherwise a very worthwhile and entertaining novel.

Keep in mind, that it is still a fairy tale. There are fairies. There is magic. If you have objections to that sort of thing, this is not the book for you. (My own stance on magic is that it is a wonderfully creative aspect of literature that has been part of storytelling for centuries, and perfectly harmless unless you are trying to produce it in the real world. I also believe that children are capable of telling fiction from reality from a very early age, and would put a book about magical beings in a child’s hand much sooner than I’d put a book filled with violence–which they actually see in the real world.)

First, the warning: the novel contains somewhat objectionable content, but considering the setting, this content is appropriate. The novel is set in the 1970s on a college campus. While author Pamela Dean leaves the politics out, for the most part, several minor characters are involved with drugs, and most of the characters are engaged in premarital sex. This is actually where the book almost lost me; I don’t mind a bit of sexual content, but when it becomes the main focus of the plot, I tend to lose interest. Early in the novel, the three freshman girls the plot follows through college make the conscious decisions to begin sleeping with their boyfriends. While Dean does spare us superfluous descriptions of their encounters, for much of the novel this is the main focus. When towards the middle of the novel, the action sort of peters out, I nearly put down the book, tiring of these young adult lives that revolved only around sex and school drama.

But as I said, the ending really does make up for these faults, at least in my book. Since this novel is not really based on a fairy tale, per se, but on a ballad, you don’t necessarily get the happily-ever-after ending, but it is delightfully true to the story of the ballad. The ballad itself concerns a young woman who sleeps with a man who has been ensnared by the Queen of the Faeries. When she becomes pregnant, she must rescue her lover. It really is a deligtful story if for no other reason than for the fact that the woman is the savior–a rarity in classic literature.

I’ll also say that I was a bit disappointed with the very modern, realistic perspective of the entire novel. It made all mention of the faery seem out of place, and left something to be wanting at the end of the novel. It is almost as if Dean was trying to be too politically correct, too feminist in a world of literature that is decidedly not so. Oh, well.

It was an enjoyable read, nonetheless. I just expected more.