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After Alice: A Novel
After Alice: A Novel
After Alice: A Novel
Audiobook7 hours

After Alice: A Novel

Written by Gregory Maguire

Narrated by Katherine Kellgren

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

From the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Wicked comes a magical new twist on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis’s Carroll’s beloved classic.

When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

In this brilliant work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings—and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late—and tumbles down the rabbit-hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is “After Alice.”

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateOct 27, 2015
ISBN9780062417138
After Alice: A Novel
Author

Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked—the beloved classic that is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award–winning Broadway musical of the same name and the major motion picture—Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz. His series Another Day continues the story of Oz with The Brides of Maracoor, The Oracle of Maracoor, and The Witch of Maracoor, and his other novels include A Wild Winter Swan, Hiddensee, After Alice, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, and Mirror Mirror. He lives in New England and France.

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Reviews for After Alice

Rating: 3.0559440783216782 out of 5 stars
3/5

286 ratings50 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Lewis Carroll's Alice books are fun and clever and smart. 'After Alice' is occasionally the first, sometimes accidentally the second, and never as much the third as it thinks it is. This is a case of trying too hard that just ends up being rather uncomfortable to read. Maguire tries to give stories to too many characters and ends up shortchanging them all in the process. The conceit of following Ada when she follows Alice down the rabbit hole is interesting and could have been a wonderful story if Maguire had used the opportunity to view Wonderland through a different lens. Ada starts out as an unimaginative and fairly grounded child, but too quickly upon landing in Wonderland does she succumb to its surrealism. Having a logical child follow in Alice's footsteps and attempt to rationalize what she's seeing could have made for a thoughtful and even fun story. Even interspersing chapters of Lydia aboveground wondering where Alice has gotten off to and only half-assedly looking for her because she's too wrapped up in her own fifteen-year-old-girl problems could have added an intriguing texture to the story. Instead, it's like Maguire started with these ideas and then became enamored with his own cleverness and decided he needed to add in commentary on evolution and slavery in the American South and kept adding characters to do so and it all just ended up a muddled mess with all of the storylines just kind of fizzling out, rather than having proper endings.

    I wanted to love it, but ended up just being annoyed with it. This will not be joining my Alice collection. There are other pastiches that work better. They may not be "good", but they're entertaining (which this wasn't) and that counts for a lot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting, but a bit too inconclusive in my view, the two plot lines never really wind back together like I expected them too
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting story. I've never read the original Alice in Wonderland, only seen the movies. This book makes me want to read it now!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm a huge fan of Gregory Maguire....Mirror Mirror being my favourite of his...but After Alice just didn't work for me. I found it mostly boring and even cheesy at times...like when Humpty Dumpty says that salt completes him. I imagine the author was trying to draw parallels between what lies beneath, whether our faith (and the debate of evolution) or our freedom (the underground railroad), our motivations. Unfortunately, it didn't work.I'm so glad this isn't my first Gregory Maguire book because I then might not of read his others, which are so much better.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    6 for 2016. I do like Gregory Maguire's books. I like the way he takes on classic stories and revises them to shift our focus. Of the ten books listed opposite the title page of this present volume, I own and have read eight. All that said, I continue to feel that Wicked is his masterpiece, and none of the books that followed have lived up to the promise made in that first retelling. After Alice, enjoyable as it is, also falls short, in my opinion. The title can be read in many ways, but perhaps the simplest explanation is that Ada, a neighbor child, falls through the rabbit hole and spends her time in "wonderland" chasing after Alice. Many of our favorite characters from the original Lewis Carroll story are present here--the white rabbit, the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse, the White Knight, the Duchess, and of course the Queen of Hearts and all her court. While the world that Ada encounters once she stops falling is every bit as strange as what we find in the original, it doesn't feel quite as surreal, at least to this reader. The introduction of young black child, the only member of a slave family to escape death, seems a bit far-fetched, and his only narrative purpose seems to be that he is the one who goes through the looking glass, eventually meeting up with Ada, but not returning with her and Alice. All in all, I recommend the book. It is an enjoyable read, although I found the opening pages a bit tedious as if Maguire were trying to force the reader into 1860s England through the power of language. I give it four stars out of five because I just wish it were as lyrical as Wicked.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    It too me a dreadfully long time to get through this rather short book.One truth is that I’ve never been all that interested in Alice In Wonderland. The story, in any form, has never caught my fancy.Another truth is that the only non-tedious parts of After Alice did actually occur in Wonderland, but they were few and far between. Less than half of this book actually takes place in Wonderland, and even the parts that do are kind of a mess.You get a small peak at some notable Wonderland residents, but mostly this book is trying to get at something else. But what that is isn’t very clear, and mostly it talks itself in conceited circles.This rarely happens, but after I finished the last words and the cover I said to myself “Stupid.” Out-loud. To myself.I didn’t think it was possible for Maguire to write something more uninteresting than Lost. I guess I was wrong.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I’m incredibly disappointed with this book, because I love much of Maguire’s other work and I’m a big fan of Alice as well. I figured I’d be diving into a new perspective on Wonderland, while keeping with the time period.In a nutshell, what I received was a bland rehashing of the original story, mixed with seemingly pointless chapters about Alice’s sister and Darwin (and maybe some commentary on slavery? I’m not sure) and stuffed to the gills with pretentious vocabulary. Don’t get me wrong, I like to learn a new word now and then, but I have zero patience for books that require me to keep my dictionary handy for practically every page. I gave up my research a handful of pages in.Ada should have been an engaging character – she’s very literal-minded, which would be a challenge in Wonderland, and she also suffers from a disability. Yet, moments after falling down the rabbit hole, Ada no longer needs the apparatus that helps her walk and she soon stops being puzzled by all the nonsense surrounding her and moves through the crazy world with little to no difficulty. As a result, she became as bland as the rest of the cast.Ada is essentially following Alice, visiting all the main characters that appear in the original book (which, I’ll admit, while I do collect it, I prefer the Disney movie over Carroll’s text), but none of the scenes felt fresh or reimagined in any way. It felt more like a vague tour of popular Wonderland hotspots and I vacillated between bored and confused while reading.When we’re not reading about Ada, we’re stuck listening to Lydia complain about her life and try to flirt with some guy (though she really seemed annoyed with him) and those chapters were even worse than Ada’s. I’m clueless as to why Lydia was the other main character, because I don’t think she had much depth, nor do I think she added to Alice’s backstory.Bottom line, I hated this book. But it was so dull and confusing that I couldn’t even build up any hatefire for it. I don’t like to feel that way about something from one of my favorite writers, but I have to be honest. I almost didn’t finish this book, but I bought it new and the cover was pretty and it was Maguire so I pushed through. But I wouldn’t recommend this book for fans of Alice or Maguire. If you haven’t read any of his work and you enjoy fairy tale retellings, I highly recommend Mirror Mirror or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister instead.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Though written in the identical style of the original ( very difficult to follow at times, Gregory Maguire was able to get quite an interesting idea down on paper. I did enjoy it, but my middle schoolers would not get the dry wit or humor that goes with this book. I recommend for a senior in high school, or maybe a very enlightened Middle Schooler
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow! This was not what I expected. Not necessarily a compelling, "can't wait to get back to it" kind of plot, but descriptive and oddly thoughtful and replete with passages like this:

    The bells said that at its core, human life was fundamentally a sort of organic clockwork, while the winds and skylarks that swept against the sound of metronomic iron timekeeping argued for variety, subtlety, epiphany. What the sun thought, or meant, or said, was too high overhead to be heard. Like the vast deity to which Lydia's father tried to pray, the sun shouted its light and simultaneously kept its magnificent silence.

    Wow!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Simple premise, solid writing, pleasant reading. Nothing flashy. Maguire has taken a mishmash of scenes from Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass and reworked them from the viewpoint of the unimaginative Ada, who has followed Alice into Wonderland to retrieve her. Woven through this story are the threads of stories of the various people looking for Ada, for Alice, and then for another missing child. Well worth the read, would happily read again.----------[on rereading, some years later, about halfway through the book]I had entirely forgotten reading this book, but various sections in the first few chapters were familiar enough that I wondered if I had, or if there were another book with some interesting similarities. Rather relieved to find it was the same book!Things I had forgotten/not thought to mention in the previous review* Ada, one of our viewpoint characters, has some level of physical disability, but gets to escape that in Wonderland. * Much is made of the foreheads of Alice (mentioned, but at the point I'm currently at, not actually encountered) and Alice's older sister, Lydia (another viewpoint character). I had thought that this was implying some amount of either low intellect or low level of education, but when Lydia actually gets to have a sensible conversation, they actually have some interesting things to say* Siam Winter, ward of Mr Winter (whom Lydia has the aforementioned conversation with), is a young black man or boy (I can't get a feel for age of this individual, and the context makes 'boy' a loaded term) who has escaped slavery in the USA, and been brought to England for safety. Much of the description of Siam, and the interactions with other characters, is decidedly uncomfortable.* I don't think there are any female characters that get positive representation. Except possibly Lydia and Alice's dead mother. Ada's mother gets lots of focus on being an alcoholic; Ada's governess gets lots of negative commentary, but as those are from Ada (who doesn't really seem to like anyone) and Lydia (who is at an age where the lines of rank are very clear cut and can't be crossed) it is difficult to make independent judgement. * The male characters might get better representation, but in the abstract, because the majority of them don't actually get speaking roles. Mr Winter is the exception here, but again, we are getting our perception filtered through Lydia, who is enjoying the opportunity for 'adult' conversationon finishing, there are some of the above perceptions that are not exactly right, but I don't care enough to edit them.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    One star for the beautiful jacket and lovely map of Oxford beneath.
    DNF. Dry, boring, painful to read. Not a patch on "Wicked."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    His strangest fairy tale to date I believe. Not sure that one needed to be written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Clever and beautiful prose with many laugh out loud lines. I appreciated the use of alliteration in particular.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So, to preface this, I’ve only read one other book by Maguire, Wicked. So, I’m somewhat familiar with his writing, in that it’s dense and wordy. After Alice was definitely an easier read than Wicked because there’s only so much new story to tell and it’s unnecessary for him to over explain the setting.

    Now, I looked at Goodreads and noticed it’s rated with 2.77 stars, and I’m confused as to why. I found this so inventive and interesting compared to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass because it runs on the assumption that Alice had actually left Oxford and found somewhere new, rather than dreaming. Her family and friends spend the whole novel looking for her, but Ada is the only one looking in the right place.

    The novel switches between (mainly) Ada, a friend mentioned in Carroll’s work, and Alice’s sister, Lydia. Ada has some physical deformities that are looked down upon by most others in her society. From what I gathered, she’s got severe scoliosis, or something like that, because she has to wear a metal corset to keep her posture as straight as possible. Alice seems to be the only one who does not look at her like she is her disability.

    Lydia, on the other hand, knows Alice to disappear frequently, and thinks she’ll turn up sooner or later. Lydia tries to hide it, but is dealing with the death of her mother and the now absence of her father, and Alice’s floaty personality. She’s an average 15 year old girl for the time.

    I think the reason this book was not received well is because readers wanted something like Wicked, or something like Alice in Wonderland, and it’s neither. Maguire perfectly mixed Victorian England with a beloved work to make something different. There are wonderful nods to the original work, but there are characters we learn more about and ones that aren’t mentioned until the end. I also think there’s some sort of commentary being made here, but I don’t feel like figuring it out.

    Overall, I really enjoyed this and gave it 5 stars. I believe this is a super creative book and that it should be read with nothing else in mind. Take it for what it is and try not to compare it to other things.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Though written in the identical style of the original ( very difficult to follow at times, Gregory Maguire was able to get quite an interesting idea down on paper. I did enjoy it, but my middle schoolers would not get the dry wit or humor that goes with this book. I recommend for a senior in high school, or maybe a very enlightened Middle Schooler
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I really wasn't sure I was going to finish this one, but I'm giving all the "eventually" books a shot, so I went with it and finally did it. It was hard to get into, and maybe slightly too connected to the source material. I never liked "Alice in Wonderland," but I also didn't like "The Wizard of Oz," but "Wicked" kind of fascinated me. This book was thoroughly disorienting, and I worried about Siam, but I was happy that Ada grew from her adventure.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Well, this one was a flop. It was just OK. I was going to give 3 stars, but then the ending, ugh. 2 stars it is.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Couldn’t get into this one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Dear me. I am so conflicted! See, on the one hand Gregory Maguire is one of my all time favorite writers. His ability to spin in his own particular brand of whimsy into classic tales is unrivaled. I've loved every single one of his books that I've set my hands on. Which is why I had such high hopes for this particular story. Alice in Wonderland is an iconic piece of childhood. Everyone knows it in some capacity or another. For me, it was the book I most loved to have read to me before bed. I've read every iteration of it that I could get. Needless to say, I was thrilled to read this.

    Now, I find myself finished and rather conflicted about After Alice. I'll start with the good. First off, Maguire does indeed pay homage to his source material. Readers can expect to see cameos from some of their favorite quirky characters, and Ada's interactions with them are just as delightful as her predecessors. Also, the whole feel of the original is still here. The erudite vocabulary, the nonsense that isn't quite nonsense, all of it is there in vivid color. The portions that take place in Wonderland are simply darling. Ada's stubborn ways, pitted against the inhabitants of this wonderful world, were just too much fun.

    What brings this book down, in my opinion, is its use of dual points of view. Lydia, Alice's older sister, has her own experiences chronicled in alternating chapters. Which means, of course, that every other chapter is filled with her Lydia's own musings and personality. Lydia isn't easy to like. She is, in fact, rather insufferable. Having her chapters mixed in with Ada's own whimsical ones made this book more difficult to read than I expected. I almost wanted to skip every other chapter, just to get back to Wonderland. If this book had focused solely on Ada's chapters, you would see a much different review being written. That part, I loved.

    So, final thoughts? This isn't Maguire's strongest book. While it definitely has a lot in it to love, I feel like long time readers of Maguire's works will probably fall into the same boat that I am in right now. Feeling torn between wanting to love this, and dreaming of what might have been. There is still much of the Maguire magic in this book! If you're a completionist, I'd still give this a spot on your TBR.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I had the feeling throughout the book that I was missing something important that would unlock the secrets and allow me see how clever the author was. I never found that missing element and finished the book not caring much if I found it or not. I've liked other work by the author and will continue to read him, but this book didn't grab me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Alternatively, a story can be adored for centuries. But it cannot be derailed. A plot, whether abandoned by a reader or pursued rapturously, remains itself, and gets where it is headed even if nobody is looking. It is progressive and inevitable as the seasons." (pg. 70)I completely fell in love with this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ada follows Alice down the hole and only catches up to her at the end. Siam finds his own way through the looking glass and decides he’s reached as good a place as he can get. This was never painful and had it’s own humor so I’m almost ready to forgive GM for the political tract of Wicked. But not really. I knew he could do better because of Stepsister.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Maybe I should have given this one star. I never connected with any of the characters, or really cared what happened to them next. The familiar setting of the Alice stories probably made it worse; if the characters had explored a fresh landscape, at least then the scenery could have been surprising.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was lucky enough to receive this book early through a Goodreads giveaway! I adore Gregory Maguire's books and this was no different. I felt challenged and stimulated and certainly entertained.

    POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!




    Even though I read the synopsis from the publisher, the name of this book still led me to believe that the events in the book would occur AFTER Alice had been in Wonderland. However, the book portrayed more of a "meanwhile" look at many other people and their experiences over the same space of time that Alice is busy in Wonderland. Despite my initial confusion, I enjoyed the book VERY much. As with Maguire's "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister," I was elated to hear the tale of Alice's older sister and her journey that fateful day. I was also intrigued by the introduction of Ada and Siam as other children who slipped through the veil. It made me wonder what kind of magic was in the air that particular day that so many people ended up in that alternate universe.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Like Maguire's other revisionist fantasy tales, this book surprisingly lacks whimsy, but the reader is compensated by though-provoking parallels.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Another VERY disappointing book from Gregory Maguire. I think Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is one of the best books in any genre and the Wicked books are also very good, but this and Mirror Mirror really disappointed me. It's not that I didn't like the original story on which they're based, since The Wizard of Oz doesn't interest me either... I just could NOT get interested in the main character at all.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I really wanted this book to be good, but I just couldn't get into the story. I might just be biased since Alice in Wonderland is my favorite book, but I just feel like this was his least imaginative story. Kudos for all the references to the Jabberwocky though!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Stuff and nonsense with just a bit of clever wordplay.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of Alice in Wonderland, seen through the eyes of the adults looking for her in the original world and Ada, Alice's friend, following her down the rabbit hole. The book is great. It is written in a similar style to Lewis Carroll, with funny anecdotes, play on words, and imaginative characters. The book will be better appreciated if Alice in Wonderland is read first, as Ada follows a similar adventure to Alice. It can be funny, cute, and occasionally exciting. Good story if you enjoy Lewis Carroll's original work.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A deeply fascinating extension of the Alice stories by Lewis Carroll with some underlying themes. Equal parts comedic and pathos delights the reader. An acquaintance with the Alice books, the poem the Jabberwock and Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream will enhance the reading experience.