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Splintered by A.G. Howard totally won Sunday’s poll of what-do-I-read-next. So I read it. I’m agreeable like that.

I borrowed this from the library (yes! This isn’t an ARC review! Weird, eh?). Splintered hit shelves in January, 2013.

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.

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I am in such post-book-shock right now. Good luck getting a sensible review out of me. Because all I’m can coherently garble is: VORPAL SWORD OFF WITH HER HEAD MOTH MORPHEUS MORPHEUS RED ROSES.

I did warn you.

This book is the most brilliant piece of magical genius. Ever. I don’t say things like that lightly. I don’t. And I have so many problems with this book (it’s unnatural, actually, just how many complaints I have), but it’s getting 5-stars because FREAKISH MOTH WINGS it is brilliance. I haven’t read a book with this much original imagination in forever.

Okay, enough gushing. Let’s get down to the grit.

This is an Alice in Wonderland retelling. Which I assume you’d figure out from the blurb and title and stuff. So! I love that. I do, I do. I have a serious passion for Alice in Wonderland (and Tim Burton’s movie of it is my absolute favourite). But I honestly didn’t like how, in the beginning of the book, we were “debunking Alice myths”. Alice got so many things “wrong” when she was in Wonderland. We get a lot of it “set straight”. That really bugged me. I LOVE Lewis Carroll’s story. And since this is a tribute to him, I feel annoyed at the “Alice-was-wrong” references.

It also has a love-triangle. And it is the best love-triangle I have ever read. Woah! Yes, I did just say that! But for once I felt like the author actually created TWO guys you could root for! She developed both of them. I totally have no idea who Alyssa will end up with eventually. I know who I’m routing for. 100 billion percent.

Starts with M ends with creepily morbid and awesome.

Since we’re talking about the luuuurve side, let’s have a brief chat about the characters, okay? I love the characters. (Chat done. Okay, joking. I’ll expand.) Actually, I can’t say “characters”, because I want to exclude Jeb from that statement. AHEM. Carrying on! I really love Alyssa. She narrates in first person. She’s really spunky and artistic. She has style and attitude and is funny. Great! A multi-dimensional, wonderful narrator! Love her!

Then we have the dudes: Jeb (her childhood friend) and Morpheus (a creepy moth-like creature). It’s definitely not good boy vs. bad boy. It’s bad boy vs worse boy. Gosh! They’re both as bad as each other!

Jeb is controlling. He’s controlling to the point where: he has another girlfriend (Taelor, I hope she trips on a banana peel), but he’s still controlling Alyssa’s life like her big-brother/wannabe-boyfriend. Morpheus is slinky and manipulative. But the difference, I feel, is that everyone knows Morpheus is manipulating. Jeb hides his controlling under the umbrella of “I-want-what’s-best for you”. He drives me crazy! Even if Morpheus is almost a villain: I go for him. It’s not even a hard decision. MORPHEUS.

Pity Alyssa doesn’t have my clarity of choice here.

The Wonderland-interpretations were unique and AMAZING. Seriously, the imagination behind this book is gob-smacking. Everything was brilliant and well though out. The plot twists left my jaw swinging. Honestly, I don’t get surprised in books very much. This knocked. my. socks. off.

Writing? For me, it was hard to swallow. The description is intense and detailed. If you miss a single bit, you’ll get confused later on. I appreciate the intensity, but for me (just personally) I did struggle. It took me a lot longer to read. Also, the font? It’s tiny. There’s a note in the back saying they recreated the font Lewis Carroll used blah-blah…Please. Make it normal sized font, next time?

I have never needed a sequel as bad as I need Unhinged. Unhinged is book #2 and I AM DESPERATE FOR IT. Two seconds after I finished reading Splintered (I took a moment to tweet my awe of Morpheus), I was googling it with serious considerations to buy. I’m broke. But if I had money, trust me, I would have bought this THAT FAST. I neeeed it.

I’m a sucker for all things Wonderland. But that aside, this is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Morpheus. It’s morbid and poignant and utterly creepy.

I have finished Allegiant by Veronica Roth, which is the LAST book in the Divergent trilogy. I knew it’d be explosive. Seriously, I actually didn’t want to read it. It came out while I was on holidays and when I came back…everyone either HATED it or thought it was “okay”. Terrifying, much? I loved the first two. I didn’t want to hate the last one.

But now I have read it.

This will probably be a useless review. But I’ll tell the basics:

First of all, I adored this book! Oh. my. gosh. I cannot tell you how emotionally destroyed I am. I haven’t felt this way before. I mean, I was gobsmacked and hungover by The Hunger Games trilogy, The Fault in Our Stars, Not a Drop to Drink, and This Song Will Save Your Life. They all have wildly different endings. But they all have one thing in common: SOUL DESTROYERS.

I was freaking out that I would hate it. After the things I’d heard…(though, luckily, I didn’t see any massive spoilers). How could I survive an end to the trilogy I’d loved so far? But I loved it. I so loved it. I had a hunch, and I was right. By 80% through, I knew what would happen. And I was right. Did that wreck the book for me? No. Ha. You’re funny. I was too busy screaming.

Characters? They were perfect. I mean, they were perfect in their imperfections. What I love most about this series is that the author, Veronica Roth, sets up characters who are strong: not strong as in “I-will-fight-everyone-with-my-teeth” (though they kind of do that as well). But they’re strong in that they never act out of character. They are like REAL people. They’re well written. Their thoughts make sense in their lines of thinking. Plus, I felt the characters continued to grow and mature and change. Awesome, right?

Tris and Tobias? Ohhh, I love them. I loved their relationship (or lack thereof at sometimes). I love that there was no love-triangles. They knew they were for each other. Okay, yes they fought. Yes, they hated each other sometimes. But they knew they’d have to work for their relationship if they wanted to keep it. I love that there was no easy-love. Ah, just another thing to make them freakishly realistic.

Plot? Like I said earlier, I did have a feeling about what would happen. I was right. It was the most epic twist in the world. I have no regrets for loving this book. But seriously? I was SO emotionally ruined. I cried. I read the book in one day. ONE DAY.

The author is brave to do what she did in her book. But, you know what? The Divergent series belongs to Veronica Roth. She let us see them (thank you so much). I don’t care if she had a drastic ending. I don’t care if that’s not what fans wanted. I care that this is HER series and she obviously did what she wanted. I loved her ending. If you asked me (um, when I was more emotionally stable then right now) how it should end, I think, in all Candor honesty, I would have done what she did. It was right.

The ending was right.

Now leave me alone to die.

SPOILERS ABOUT THE ENDING

Okay. Let’s get to the grit, shall we? Tris died. I’m sorry, I needed to write that down. I don’t know? To finalise it? I feel like someone has died that I knew. Maybe this is ridiculous and obsessive of me, buuuut, that’s the way I feel. Maybe I feel this way because I’m a writer. As a writer, I knew the split POV was for a reason. Either Tris or Tobias would die. I thought it’d be Tobias, but then…could Tris live without Tobias? Yes. Could Tobias live without Tris? It’d be harder. So I knew Tris would die. (I only realised that 80% in, so I didn’t spend the whole book bawling.)

As soon as Caleb was going to die to release the serum, I felt something was off. I mean, heck, that wasn’t the message the series had sent so far! I was actually angry at Tris. She guilted him into doing it. And he wanted to die so he wouldn’t be guilty?! NO. Just NO. That’s when I figured out Tris would do it.

Tris annoyed me in the books a little. Mostly for not forgiving Caleb. She knew what guilt did to people. Helloooo, Al, anyone? Now don’t get mad at me! I now what Caleb did to her, but I also have a sister (hey, Mime. Hope you’re not reading this because you’ll spoil it for yourself). But I would forgive my sister rather then let her die.

As Tobias? Yes, he bothered me just as much as Tris did. But you know what? They both bothered me in GOOD ways. Every time they made a stupid decision, I though, “Wow. They’ll never be infallible.” They’re still teenagers. They’re still human. They’re still hot heads.

But I love, I LOVE, that they made up before she died. And I love that Tobias went on to be a leader like he should. And I LOVE that Tris died the way she did, doing something she believed in, something she was willing to die for.

But I will never be okay. Okay? Never. Ever. No way.

PS. If Haymitch had been there, he’d have kept BOTH Tris and Tobias alive. They needed Haymitch, okay? Peeta and Katniss have no idea how lucky they were to have a Haymitch.

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered – fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.
But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningliess. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend to complexities of human nature – and of herself – while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.