UNHINGED by A.G. Howard

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Fiction/Romance/Adventure

Similar Writings: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol, Alice in Zombieland – The White Rabbit Chronicles by Gena Showalter

Plot: This is the second book in the Splintered Series called Unhinged, by A. G. Howard. A year after Alyssa’s journey in Wonderland, she is back in the human realm with her boyfriend Jeb and trying to handle living with her mother, who is newly released from the insane asylum. Not only is Jeb working hard on starting his career as an artist, which is putting friction on his and Alyssa’s relationship, but Alyssa cannot find the right time or courage to remind him of what happened a year prior when they went to Wonderland.

To make matters worse, Morpheus shows up to school one day masked as another human to get Alyssa to come back to Wonderland with him and defeat Red. Alyssa is once again forced to choose between her human side by protecting the ones she loves, or her netherling side and protecting a world she feels is her home.

Opinion: I don’t want to give anything away that could ruin the story, so I am going to be as descriptively cryptic as possible. This book was a little less exciting compared to the first story, Splintered, but it was still packed with new turmoil and headaches. I feel like it might just be a stepping stone for the reader to prepare themselves for the third book (remember how they split the last Harry Potter book into two movies? This book is like the part 1, you need it to get to part 2). Don’t get me wrong, there is A LOT going on in this story. Alyssa almost drowns while on a date with Jeb, Morpheus starts showing up to school tempting Alyssa as usual, and she starts making mosaics with her blood. Her mother Allison is completely overbearing and overprotective, but considering she has been away for years in an insane asylum, you can’t really blame her.

The main issue I had with this book is that my mind kept wandering, never a good sign. I just wasn’t as wrapped up in this book as I was with Splintered. This book was centered in the human realm and not in Wonderland, so it felt more like a teenage drama story than the awesome take on Alice in Wonderland that it was in the previous book. There are so many more important things that Alyssa COULD have been focused on, like the fact that Red is destroying Wonderland. Jeb’s character is played up so much by the author that Alyssa seems to always be looking like she’s less than him, which is probably why I am not the only reader who prefers Morpheus. The reader gets a bit more insight on the other sides of the characters in this story, but I could still care less about Jeb. Morpheus starts to show his sincere side to Alyssa to prove that not everything he does is selfish (apart from the vow he made Alyssa make 😮 ) , and Jeb is shown as having more faults and makes mistakes which is always refreshing for a character who seems so perfect. But in the end, it seems like the author really wants the reader to know that Morpheus is the darkness and Jeb is the light.

I think the story finally started coming together and grabbing my interest again towards the end. Jeb finally has his memories back and remembers everything, and the craziness of Wonderland is brought to the human realm for an awesome battle. So in less words than more, you really need to read this book just so you can read Ensnared and know what is going on. I just started Ensnared today, but so far it is proving to be the epic wrap up to the series that I was hoping for.