Reviewed by Nessa Luna on
Two years ago, I bought a book called Splintered because I was intrigued by the summary and the promise of a creepy Wonderland - and because of that cover. I read the book and fell in love, though I did also have some things I didn't like about the book (hence it only having three stars though I did love the story). Then Unhinged came out with another gorgeous cover and an even better story. And this year, Ensnared, the final book in the series was released. I had pre-ordered it and picked it up at my local bookstore as soon as they got it, and then I kind of let it lie on my desk for a couple of days because I was afraid of starting it and ending up completely disappointed by what happened in the end.
And I have to say I wasn't super happy with how the book ended, but more on that later. I just want to explain why I gave this book only three (and a half) stars, while I did love the previous one. Because in this book there was a lot more love-triangly things going on. This book was just full-on 'should I choose Jeb or should I choose Morpheus', and though there was enough action to compensate for that at least a bit, the whole triangle thing annoyed me so much in this book. Especially because both boys were so keen on having Alyssa. Seriously I think at some point they even started arguing/fighting about it while she was there, like seriously?!
Like with the previous two books, a lot of things were described in such detail that I found amazing. Though I had a hard time imagining half of those things, I really liked it in this book for some reason (though normally I do not like detailed descriptions of things). I just guess it fit in this story and it would have been a lot weirder to imagine most of the creatures from Wonderland and the Looking Glass world without those descriptions. But I still just can't imagine the clothes that Alyssa wears, I think I just need to see them drawn or in a picture before I can think 'oh so that's what it looks like'.
In this book, I started to dislike Morpheus more and more but I think I am one of the very few because I think at least 90% of the fandom loves him and I... Just... Can't... See... It... He's an ass, he's manipulative, he just wants Alyssa all to himself and he probably just kept Jeb alive because if he didn't Alyssa would probably be effing pissed at him or something. I don't know, I just don't like him. So yeah I was rooting for Jeb throughout this book (and in the previous book as well). I know he's not perfect either (he was a bit annoying in the first book as well, I have to admit that), but I just liked him better than Morpheus.
Like I said there were some nice action scenes in this book, but my favourite has got to be the part in the courtyard of Queen of Hearts' castle. Wow. Some things happened in that scene that made me really really scared, but in the end it all came out okay and I was happy again! But there was one scene that I really really missed in this book, and it actually made me feel a bit betrayed, honestly. The part where Ivory and Alyssa were supposed to put Wonderland back into it's original shape. The whole book led up to Alyssa having to defeat Red and bring back Wonderland and it DOES NOT HAPPEN. Instead Morpheus and Jeb do the thing and ugh I'm just a bit pissed at this. First of all Red was defeated in a bamf way (the courtyard thing), but then Alyssa almost dies and the 'men' do all the work. I really - ugh - I just can't really put it into words without repeating myself.. I am very disappointed by this.
As for the ending, I am both happy and not so happy with it - but it's a kind of spoiler (and I have already used some spoiler tags in this post, so I won't be using another one). If you want to know how the book ends, and (probably most importantly) who Alyssa ends up with, you should definitely read Ensnared.
My opinion on this book in one gif:
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 31 January, 2015: Finished reading
- 31 January, 2015: Reviewed