Review: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter
Title: Alice in Zombieland
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Series: White Rabbit Chronicles #1
Other Reviews for This Author: Intertwined ; Unravelled
Beware all ye that enter here: Alice in Zombieland is not a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. The beloved Lewis Carroll classic is represented in inspiration only in this tome. The marketing and concept suggest something much different, but for readers, this is crucial knowledge. Had I read this as a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, I would have hated it – felt cheated, really. Gena Showalter presents a fun YA novel that is arguably her best book to date in the paranormal YA genre, but the inspirations from Carroll’s classic series never go beyond shallow ideas and little Easter eggs. If the reader can get past that and/or not care about the Alice connotation…they’ll find something fun in Alice in Zombieland. Showalter has improved tenfold with her YA writing in this work, and it hits all the right notes for me as a fan of the paranormal YA genre.
Alice's father has always been an odd duck. Growing up, Alice remembers his fascination with the darkness more than anything else. It was a morbid fascination - the kind that made a child perpetually afraid of the boogeyman. Her father has waited up night after night, fully prepared to protect his family from the monsters that inhabit the darkness. Alice has never seen the objects of her father's delusions - nor has her younger sister, Emma, or her mother. Mr. Bell is the only member of his family to supposedly see these monsters that threaten their existence, going so far as to never pass by cemeteries - even in daylight - and avoid going out at night, even for momentous childhood events like dance recitals.
Needless to say, Alice has never felt entirely comfortable with her father's delusions. Her father is basically insane, yet Alice can't let go of her sympathy for him. Now that Emma has a major dance recital coming up, Alice has finally decided to stand her ground and insist that, just once, her father break his golden rule of not staying out past sunset. Just once, for Emma. Alice really believes that everything will be fine. Her father, reluctant to agree, allows it on the condition that they leave right away and follow all of his rules: if told, run straight back into the building, and, if you need to, remember how to defend yourself. Alice hasn't needed to put these rules into effect before, but there's a first time for everything.
They attack. Her father freaks out. Their car crashes. Life as Alice Bell has known it will never be the same.
It's hard for Alice to understand what she witnesses during the car accident. She comes into consciousness within the wreckage and notices the devastation around her. Her sister and mother's bodies in shambles around the metallic webbing of the car. Her father a partial mess at the front of the car. He appears to be dead. The life in him is almost gone. Yet, to Alice he almost looks alive - barely. The appearance of shadows that seem to spirit something from his body, stealing his soul and devouring it in front of her, causes her to rethink everything. Even as she slips into unconscious bliss, recovering later in the hospital, Alice knows that her life will never be the same. Her father wasn't hallucinating. Her father wasn't crazy. It may be too late for him - and the rest of her family - but Alice can still save herself from these demonic beings, even if it means learning to fight them.
Sound anything like a retelling of Alice in Wonderland? I think not. Getting past that initial roadblock, I immediately found myself engaged in the voice that Gena Showalter presented in Alice in Zombieland. Anyone that enjoys her first series will notice a distinction in the writing voice. Alice is a bit less mature, but not in a bad way. Alice Bell sounds like a teenager. Her mistakes and her issues feel genuine, and her attention to slang and emotions are more in line with the way a regular teen would view them than an adult. This progression in Showalter's abilities from her first YA novel, Intertwined, was enough to get me excited about the direction of Alice's narrative. She starts out as a very oblivious girl with simple needs. She doesn't fully understand her father's psychosis or why she should be paying attention to the world around her. The drama of her family's death leads her into a place where she goes down a metaphoric rabbit hole. Her life changes forever, after all, and she comes to learn of the existence of zombies. The plot advancement does lead to Alice growing as a character, and what was most surprising to me as a reader was that she had a backbone. Honestly, it's rare to find a YA heroine that is so romance-focused (and Alice does focus on her romance quite a bit in this book, to forewarn readers) and still strong in personality if not in physical prowess. Alice does learn to fight in a convenient-suspension-of-disbelief way that involves a level of ability that her father instilled in her and a natural talent, and she does have those moments where she thinks too much about the boy over the zombie fighting...but there's something to be said about how Showalter voiced her and made her sound more than a lovesick girl living in a world with some messed-up zombies. Showalter references her issues with her family's death enough for it to feel real. A lot of readers who dislike the storyline and romance-heavy paranormal will find Alice to be frustrating, but for a reader that enjoys this storyline, she has the qualities that make her feel like a strong teenage girl without being annoyingly strong. She has her weaknesses that stem from her teenage mindset and her own inability to look at things appropriately sometimes, but she has her strengths, too.
Within the first fifty pages of Alice in Zombieland, we’re
treated to a lively side character by
the name of Kat. Kat is a surprising
side character because of her amount of staying power in the story. She serves some pretty basic purposes in
regards to encouraging Alice to be a stronger person and providing her with a
clique-infested social life at school, but Showalter makes her stand out among
other YA best-friend archetypes. Kat has
humor, and it’s the type of humor that is character-specific and funny. She’s over the top, ridiculous, and unfailing
in her loyalty. Her life is dramatic,
yet she is modest about it. Kat is a
girl with agency and excitement, and she never once feels like a character that
exists just to give Alice a sense of purpose beyond her boy-toy. It’s majorly refreshing, as she provides a
decent romantic subplot that goes on behind the scenes that the reader will
find themselves rooting for as the novel progresses. The other major and minor side characters are
okay, but none of them have quite the appealing nature of Kat. Several of them are intense and help out
Alice and Cole, but Kat’s the only one with a measure of originality and depth
behind her. A bit sad, but still welcome
enough to make a difference. We do get a
glimpse of an antagonistic hot boy that (hopefully) will not create a love
triangle with Alice and Cole. Showalter’s
tendency to make the characters morally black-and-white makes it hard to
believe in the possibility of one, but sometimes she skirts too close to that possibility
for comfort.
Now for the Male Love Interest Report! Cole has a lot of the checklist qualities
that we find in YA paranormal romance today, and it will be hard to recommend
him to readers that don’t love some of the specific tropes that he
embodies. He has mystery and doesn’t fully
reveal his past to Alice because of the conditions of their supernatural abilities. He has something special about him and has
witnessed some dark things while zombie fighting. Everything about him is intense, and he has a
personality that veers towards commanding alpha male. What’s interesting is that Cole manages to
bow to Alice’s strength when in doubt.
She comes back at him verbally and physically and doesn’t really take
anything from him. In many ways, the
power balance of their relationship is a subtle one that, when looked at under
the surface, is even in strength and ability.
Cole never forces her into anything, and his protectiveness doesn’t
override her freedom of choice – as evident by her knack for choosing to
participate in life-or-death struggles despite his attempts at protecting
her. Their relationship gets stretched
out more than needed at times, though, and it feels like Showalter sometimes
scrambles to find reasons for the two lovers not to be together. Cole will mostly likely annoy the hell out of
some readers, but he’s dreamy and strong in just the right ways to make this
one want to see more of him – especially since he loves Alice, and their
chemistry is entertaining.
Romance-focused or not, Alice in Zombieland is a paranormal
book that relies on world building and a strong sense of plot to make it really
work as a reading experience. For the most
part, it succeeds. Showalter’s negatives
mostly involve the mentality of the world building, which don’t personally work
for me as a reader. Showalter’s world is
based on good versus evil. Her characters
are either on a side of good, or one of evil.
There’s no limit to it: glimpses of dead characters in heaven, the
nature of how a zombie is basically embodied evil, and the way in which the
characters act. This gets annoying
because the world could be so much better and realistic in its construction if Showalter took the pathway of a more complex, dark morality. Zombies are strange beings that could very easily be given origins that straddle the line between good and evil. At the very least, they don't have to be the essence of evil itself, which comes across as over-the-top throughout the reading experience. The superficial connections to Alice in Wonderland where interesting but fairly non-important to the story. They weren't detrimental to my enjoyment of the story, but they were ultimately a missed opportunity to take the inspiration and pay more of an homage to it. Alice in Zombieland could easily be its own book while still making more of a connection with Carroll's works - they are fairly messed-up to begin with, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine them being stretched to fit a creepy-as-all-get-out zombie premise.
That being said, there are some really strong elements about the plotline that ultimately override the issues. Showalter knows how to write for her YA audience now, and in many ways her plotting is well suited to YA. The romance is broken up with several high-action, high-stakes scenes that involve battling zombies and almost dying. The balance is actually quite nice, and I found myself turning the pages of the book quickly - which hasn't happened much lately with school. The last 100 pages in particular are well-plotted. They beg to be read and finished in one large gulp (regardless of only getting four hours of sleep as a result of it...) Her voice is compelling and on-target, too, so the general affect of the action is great. Showalter uses her style to efficiently get the reader invested in what's going on. Between the action and the creepiness of the zombies - the mythology behind them, while basic, is interesting and different from the usual plague-related mythologies we see in YA nowadays - it's hard to find the book dull. Showalter's most engaging elements were still in the romantic arcs, but I found myself looking forward to the action and the intrigue behind the plot almost as much as the romance, which was great. If there's one major fault, it's that the ending of the book is weak, a bit unresolved, and relies heavily on Alice's grandparents accepting some heavy stuff about her without much backlash. Showalter's ending makes you want to sell your organs for the second book, which annoys me but also has me genuinely excited to see what she has coming up next in the series. The biggest surprise of all was just how satiated I felt after reading the final page - it's really a book with a reading experience that you'll remember.
With all of that said and done, it's safe to say that not everyone will enjoy Alice in Zombieland. It comes with a heavy dosage of teenage angst and romance of the alpha-male variety. The heroine is strong and self-assured. She grows. She has a great friend in Kat, and a great love interest in Cole. Not every aspect of the book is as strong as it could be, but Showalter ultimately shows a comfort with the teen voice that makes this book her most authentic YA novel to-date. She also shows that she can create a unique paranormal world that, with time and a few books, should prove to be very addictive to the YA paranormal reader. Like her book Unraveled, I found Alice in Zombieland surprising in how satisfying it was as a read. It's romantic, dark, and even intense in its themes. Readers will definitely be gobbling this one up - and wishing for a sooner release date for the second book.
Cover: This cover is sooo darn good. The dress is beautiful, and the background work along with the border detailing is fabulous. It pumps up the Alice in...theme a bit too much, but it's so gorgeous anyway.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Copy: Received from publisher/publicist for review (Thank you, Harlequin Teen and Natashya!!)
*Note* Readers, do be aware that a previous review of mine for Showalter's Unraveled is quoted in the ARC of Alice in Zombieland, as well as in the future trade paperback. The quote is for a separate book, but I figured y'all should be aware of my potential bias.
That being said, there are some really strong elements about the plotline that ultimately override the issues. Showalter knows how to write for her YA audience now, and in many ways her plotting is well suited to YA. The romance is broken up with several high-action, high-stakes scenes that involve battling zombies and almost dying. The balance is actually quite nice, and I found myself turning the pages of the book quickly - which hasn't happened much lately with school. The last 100 pages in particular are well-plotted. They beg to be read and finished in one large gulp (regardless of only getting four hours of sleep as a result of it...) Her voice is compelling and on-target, too, so the general affect of the action is great. Showalter uses her style to efficiently get the reader invested in what's going on. Between the action and the creepiness of the zombies - the mythology behind them, while basic, is interesting and different from the usual plague-related mythologies we see in YA nowadays - it's hard to find the book dull. Showalter's most engaging elements were still in the romantic arcs, but I found myself looking forward to the action and the intrigue behind the plot almost as much as the romance, which was great. If there's one major fault, it's that the ending of the book is weak, a bit unresolved, and relies heavily on Alice's grandparents accepting some heavy stuff about her without much backlash. Showalter's ending makes you want to sell your organs for the second book, which annoys me but also has me genuinely excited to see what she has coming up next in the series. The biggest surprise of all was just how satiated I felt after reading the final page - it's really a book with a reading experience that you'll remember.
With all of that said and done, it's safe to say that not everyone will enjoy Alice in Zombieland. It comes with a heavy dosage of teenage angst and romance of the alpha-male variety. The heroine is strong and self-assured. She grows. She has a great friend in Kat, and a great love interest in Cole. Not every aspect of the book is as strong as it could be, but Showalter ultimately shows a comfort with the teen voice that makes this book her most authentic YA novel to-date. She also shows that she can create a unique paranormal world that, with time and a few books, should prove to be very addictive to the YA paranormal reader. Like her book Unraveled, I found Alice in Zombieland surprising in how satisfying it was as a read. It's romantic, dark, and even intense in its themes. Readers will definitely be gobbling this one up - and wishing for a sooner release date for the second book.
Cover: This cover is sooo darn good. The dress is beautiful, and the background work along with the border detailing is fabulous. It pumps up the Alice in...theme a bit too much, but it's so gorgeous anyway.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Copy: Received from publisher/publicist for review (Thank you, Harlequin Teen and Natashya!!)
*Note* Readers, do be aware that a previous review of mine for Showalter's Unraveled is quoted in the ARC of Alice in Zombieland, as well as in the future trade paperback. The quote is for a separate book, but I figured y'all should be aware of my potential bias.
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