Book Review: Insanity (Mad in Wonderland) by Cameron Jace

Title: Insanity (Mad in Wonderland)

Author: Cameron Jace

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Blurb: After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll’s paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland’s real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night.

The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.

Now although I loved the sound of this book based on the blurb and by another bloggers review of it, despite how shallow this is going to sound, what really sold me was the cover. I mean, just look how gorgeous it is! I can safely say it’s one of my all-time favourite covers. But what about the actual story?

Insanity (Mad in Wonderland) follow Alice, after she accidentally kills her classmates and gets put in a lunatic asylum. In there with her is Pillar, a hookah-smoking nutcase who believes he can prove Alice’s sanity by looking deeply into Lewis Caroll’s life, paintings and books to work out where Wonderland really is and if it’s actually real. Alice sets about searching for Wonderland, saving lives from the Wonderland monsters such as the Cheshire Cat and proving her sanity by posing as an Oxford student.

Now, this book essentially wasn’t what I was expecting when I dove head first into it but nevertheless, I really enjoyed it and got completely sucked in. I’m a huge fan of books which are the authors own take on classic stories and fairy-tales – I love seeing what their weird and wonderful minds can come up with and there’s no doubt that Cameron Jace has a very very interesting and wild imagination. I loved this look into Wonderland and the creatures that inhabit it – who now live in the real world.

You can very much tell this book is directed at young adults by the narrative however I think it definitely appeals to a much wider audience due to Jace’s story-telling and the unique characters he’s come up with – despite them being based on already existing characters! That’s quite a talent to have. The only tiny criticism I have is I wished the character Jack Diamonds featured more in the book however I’m quite sure we’ll see him more in the sequel.

If you like memorable characters, a fast-paced, full of action storyline and a lot of madness then this book is for you.

Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US

4/5 Stars