Review: Insanity

Insanity
by Cameron Jace
Published December 20th 2013
by Jawigi Publishing
eARC from author
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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. 

There's only one word that appropriately described this book. Insane. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad since an Alice in Wonderland retelling are always tricky. In truth, I would prefer it if retellings focus on the fantasy side rather than give this beloved childhood tale a sinister twist complete with serial killers, grinning corpses and asylum where they constantly lobotomize their patients. And the plot? It is seriously ingenious or very confusing depends on how you perceived what is going on. Is Alice really the one from the book or is she just some deranged teenage girl guilty of murdering a busload of fellow students? 

After going through all that twists and turns, I think the book just gets weirder and weirder. Someone was comparing this to Shutter Island but I really there's some closure in that book. Insanity just goes on and on without really defining solution. I don't think I'm able to fully get this even after I finished it just as much as I first read. Hopefully, the next book is able to answer some of the crazy questions.