Nickolas Cook

I had a lot of fun reading this. You may not. It depends on your sensibilities and expectations.

First of all, this is a humor book. The reader is asked to lighten up and go along for the ride. To have fun and not to dwell too heavily on the fact that there is little originality to the story except for the characterizations and some of the settings.

As some reviewers have noted, and criticized Cook for, is the sense that he did not make this work his own as much as Seth Grahame-Smith did with show more Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

It’s obvious from the beginning that he took Carroll’s work and merely altered it.

Either he did not feel the need to reinvent, or this is a slapped out, bandwagon jumping effort to take advantage of the success of the types of books I listed above.

Even the publisher acknowledges this in an offhand way:

“A fresh and hilarious new zombie mash-up, bringing the hottest format on the humor shelf to a beloved classic, complete with zombie-fied updates to the renowned illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. Sure to be a major hit with humor, Alice and zombie enthusiasts everywhere!”

Uh, I’m not sure about that last part.

Yes, people who spend time in the humor section of the bookstore will like this book. Zombie enthusiasts should like the tack Cook takes with the story. But diehard Alice fans? I’m not so sure. From what I’ve seen around the web, not all were thrilled with Cook’s efforts.

I made it easy on myself and just read expecting nothing more than to have a giggle at Alice’s adventures through a dark and disturbing world. It was a fun read, but challenging at times.

The review copy I received was very raw. The errors in this unfinished product got to me, especially toward the end of the book. This however is the nature of the beast when dealing with an uncorrected proof. So I cannot fault the writer or the story heavily for things that should be fixed by the time this review is published.

If you are expecting something along the lines of what Grahame-Smith as done, forget it. Not even close.

However, taken for what it is, a humorous take on a classic - albeit a dark one, you may just like it.
If you are expecting a light, fun, humorous and horrifying read (especially the last chapter as it gets gory) – you will like this.

I do have a problem recommending it, because when it comes to humor, you can’t please all the people all the time. What tickles my funny bone, won’t necessarily do the same to others.

It was dark, disturbing, creepy, and humorous and I will be passing it around at work as there are a few who asked to read it once I was finished. show less

The book certainly had its’ fun moments! Zombieland was well written and well thought out. It certainly put a funny twist on Wonderland (even though Wonderland is quirky to begin with anyway). It’s definitely not for the squeamish, as body parts are flying everywhere and Alice gets a craving for a bite of flesh once very so often. The characters are all there, they’re just zombified. The only difference I have seen is instead of a White Rabbit, you have a Black Rat instead. (If I am show more wrong, forgive me, it’s been a while since I’ve read the original Alice in Wonderland).

The zombie element does not really get in the way of the plot, so nothing much has really changed. My favorite moment was the croquet game between the Queen and Alice - it’s more of a croquet game with body parts which was laughable and was fun to read through.

Even though it was a fun idea, I felt like there just could have been more to this story. There just wasn’t enough to it that I could fully enjoy the book. To me, it felt as if they just copied and pasted the zombie bits of the story and added it to Alice in Wonderland, and just changed the title appropriately. It just felt like a very haphazard read.

Perhaps what I wanted to see was, a twist to the plot to enhance the zombie aspect of the novel. Not just zombies added. It did feel like all you got was a simple add on to the story (something similar to an expansion pack for a game). More could be done with the combination but sad to say, there really wasn’t anything to it.

It was a clever idea, and it had potential, but a lot more could have been done with this book. Instead, what you got was a few cut and paste moments of zombie goodness. Some parts were good and fun to read, but it just seemed to be lacking in something big to make this book exceptionally good and read worthy. show less

Interesting book. Borrowed the e-book from the public library. Quick read, not very long. Easy to finish within a day if theres enough time, took me 3 and I read a few chapters a day before bedtime. Not as wonderful as the original, but its fun enough and quick enough to be enjoyable. Would I read it again, pry not, but was it worth the first read through, yes.

Meh. I enjoy Alice in Wonderland, but for my taste [b:The Looking Glass Wars|44170|The Looking Glass Wars (The Looking Glass Wars, #1)|Frank Beddor|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1354845928s/44170.jpg|918951] revisits it in a more entertaining way than this book. But you might be able to use the gore to sell it to middle school kids.