Category: young adult

Review of Return to Wonderland, by Tanya Lisle

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Tanya Lisle’s Return to Wonderland catches up to Alice years after she first fell down the rabbit hole. She has since endured a barrage of doctors and learned to put her adventures in Wonderland behind her. She’s finally free to attend the prestigious Lucena Academy to get a fresh start—and make friends her own age.

Unfortunately, a purple-haired boy appears at the school, revealing himself to be the Cheshire Cat. He speaks in riddles about how Wonderland is a much different place than when Alice last visited and tempts her with a visit back.

Lisle managed to modernize the world in and around Wonderland in a way that doesn’t detract from the story. It feels like a legitimate expansion of the original and, though a children’s book, is not boring or cumbersome for the adult side of the reader equation. It’s a very quick and easy read. The quality of prose is engaging, and the book has great pacing overall.

Alice is an easy character to cheer on. Her moments of doubt and her bout of nerves when meeting new people are easily relatable during the target age-range for this book, and her strength makes her all the more endearing. The supporting cast, Adrianna and her brothers specifically, feel like parallels of characters in Wonderland—so they are at once new and familiar. The Cheshire Cat himself seems to represent the changes in Wonderland. As the story progresses, Cat’s actions mirror in the normal world the changes occurring in Wonderland.

There are, of course, familiar faces in Wonderland, as well. As Alice goes through Wonderland she begins to see the changes of which the Cheshire Cat hinted. Although she is more prepared for Wonderland this time around, the changes present fresh new problems for Alice to navigate.

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Review of The Scavenger, by J. L. Willow

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The Scavenger is a YA coming-of-age story that revolves around four primary characters: Catherine, Samuel, Frank, and Nathan. After a series of teens OD, Nathan, an NYPD investigator, works to find the culprit dealing a new, deadly strain of marijuana. Meanwhile, Frank, a long-time drug dealer, already has his next client in his sights. He uses Samuel to peddle the drugs to high schoolers. Their next target? None other than Catherine.

I had two key issues with The Scavenger: structure and believability. The Scavenger follows four different first-person POVs and a random third-person POV of two of the characters it’s already following. The narrative never stays with any one character long enough for the reader to connect. The short chapters mean we’re switching characters too quickly. If the book had an additional 100 pages or so, this might be less of an issue for me. Each character had an intriguing history that was mostly hinted at instead of really fleshed out.

The book’s plot, the catalyst of ODs leading to the climax, is believable and a good subject to work with. However, believability stops with the drug causing the ODs: marijuana. While marijuana can cause dependency in some young individuals, it’s not widely considered addictive. Also, according to the DEA, there has never been a marijuana overdose. Technically, the marijuana in The Scavenger is a new, high-THC strain laced with cocaine. Ingesting a high content of THC does have side effects, including increased anxiety and paranoia, lethargy, hunger, cotton mouth, sleepiness—generally the effects of smoking a blunt. Of course, lacing marijuana with cocaine does make a dangerous combination because it stresses the heart, but it’s questionable as to if that would increase addiction. A healthy teen would have to smoke a lot (a lot) of cocaine-laced marijuana to OD. (Side note: Cocaine isn’t invisible, so the buyer would be able to see that the weed was laced)

Having said that, if you suspend your belief (or have never really dealt with drugs) then this won’t be a problem. It wasn’t enough of a problem for me that I had to put the book down and, as I said, it’s a good premise overall.

The Scavenger is easy to read. It’s well written and the relationship between Catherine and Samuel screams “teenage hormone-driven relationship.” There are great moments throughout the book and if this is J.L. Willow’s first novel, then I can only see her work getting better and better.

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