Review: A Blade so Black by L.L. McKinney

The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she's trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew.

Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice's handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she'll need to use everything she's learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head . . . literally. 

3.5/4 stars

Guys, I'm not going to lie to you. The cover got me 100% and I'm currently saving up to by a red leather (pleather) jacket, and I am not ashamed that my clothing choices are dictated by fictional characters in a book. If I could get my hair that big, I might consider that too.

So A Blade so Black is a fairytale retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I’ve read a few Alice in Wonderland retellings and typically I’m underwhelmed. I loved this book from the very beginning. Alice has what could be a fatal encounter on what was already the worst day of her life. When the boy who saves Alice (his name is Hatta… get it!!) realizes that she can see him, he takes her on as an apprentice.

Hatta teachers Alice about Wonderland, the Nightmares (the cross over to the human world and destroy things), and how to defeat them.

So first, I loved that Alice was a HUGE nerd. She said Moon Crystal Power when she needed a boost of confidence, made her own cosplay, and was authentically herself. That being said some of her code switching was a little weird. She was slip into this dialect that didn’t fit and felt a bit unnatural.

What I liked about this book that I wasn’t a huge fan of in other retellings such as, Heartless (sorry friends) was that the ties between this contemporary novel and the fairytale weren’t so on the nose. Our sleepy mouse wasn’t a mouse but a bartender who could whip up a potion to cure darn near everything. There were no talking cats. The Tweedles, were weird ball looking guys that were probably too “stranger danger-y” for young children. They were twin Russians who also fought Nightmares, and our Princess was (Spoiler alert)

LGBT which we KNOW Disney wouldn’t have done.

I liked this book, although it wasn’t perfect, it’s the best Alice in Wonderland retelling I’ve read so far, and I will read the second one. I’m hoping that the second book will go deeper into building Wonderland. I want to know what happened to Chess because I’m going to be honest I was a little confused. I want to hear more about Brionne’s and how her story plays out. I thought this book was an appropriate blend of the social issues of 2018 and the fairytale retellings many of us enjoy.