Some Literary Confessions

Normally, I have a bad habit of beginning blogs with a big "About Me" post.  I'm skipping that this time.  Here's what you need to know:

I'm a writer.
I'm a reader.
Those two things are what this blog is primarily going to be about.
But I can also be random, and that might pop up here too.

There.  Now that that's out of the way... I have a confession (or maybe two) to make.  Here it goes.  Oh, boy, is it a doosey...

I, um, I don't think that, um... I don't think I'm that into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  Phew.  You have no idea how hard that was for me.  For those of you who might read this who know me well, you might be surprised.  After all, I love weird stuff.  And Alice is the epitome of weird, right?  Yeah, I won't argue that.  But here's my second confession... I also have never read the original novel.
That's right.  I went all the way from Kindergarten to getting a Bachelor's in English for goodness sake, and I somehow missed out in ever reading Alice.  Read a lot about it.  But that's not the same, one might argue.  And you'd be right.  Just... it just never came up.  I'm open to reading it.  Maybe it will change the way I feel.  But...  I doubt it.  Here's why.

Don't even own a copy.  Image borrowed from an image search.  Don't own this image.

    I recently decided that I wanted to read a standalone novel by a YA (that's Young Adult for those of you unsure) author that I've grown to love.  I bought and (just within a week or two ago from writing this) finished Heartless by Marissa Meyer.  I was so excited to read this.  I really was.  I just knew I was gonna love it.  After all, I devoured The Lunar Chronicles by Meyer.  (Sci-fi fairytale retellings).  It started--Lunar--with a retelling of the Cinderella tale, and I've never been a fan of that either.  But dude, do I adore this series.  So, understandably, I was pumped for Heartless, which is a "the real story of the Queen of Hearts" story.  A la Gregory Maguire (I'll get back to this).  I'm always down for a good villain backstory, so I was pumped even more.  And then I read it... and...

Look at this cover.  Doesn't it scream "read me"?

Meh.

Yeah, I didn't expect that.  You might have, given the beginning of this post.  But I sure as hell didn't.  I read the whole thing.  Refused to DNF (Did Not Finish) it.  I caught several familiar characters, places, and the like.  Despite having never read the source material, I recognized these things from their usage in re-imaginings, retellings, continuations, and even the Disney flick (which I also never really liked... eep).  But I just kept waiting... kept waiting that that exciting "OMG it's___!" moment.  Never came.  I mean, there was a lot of it written in there, where diehard fans I'm sure were having a lot of those moments.  They just never hit me like that.  I was just like, "Oh, yeah, sure" at every turn.  (Save for the appearance of a certain nursery rhyme character... I think he was the reason I kept on, and no, it's not the one you think.)

Then there's the book I'm currently reading--actually, a little less than 100 pages off from finishing at the time of this post.  Written by the previously mentioned Gregory Maguire of Wicked fame, it's called After Alice.

Maybe I'm being seduced by covers.

 This is a little bit of nothing book (meaning that it's short, less than 300 pages).  I'm currently on page 219, and my LORD am I bored.  Bored bored, so freakin' bored.  Guys, I powered through The Scarlet Letter (and loved it, actually) in high school and Sense and Sensibility this past June (really understanding why the movies cut what they do with that one) and this one might be the most boring thing I've read yet.  You follow a minor (I'm assuming) character from the original source named Ada, a crippled friend of Alice's as she stumbles into Wonderland after the titular character.  But half the book is also spent with Lydia, Alice's older sister... Lydia's story is more interesting.  See the problem there?  Ada is in freakin' Wonderland, and Lydia, in the real world, is more interesting.  Still not to say that it's incredibly interesting, just that it's more so than Ada's story.  I'm almost at the end of the damn book... and I don't care.  I try not to DNF books, and since I'm so close to the ending, I'll finish this one.  But... Lord... I can't tell you how often I've nearly fallen asleep reading this one.  In the middle of the day... in my work's break room.

But what does all that have to do with me being pretty sure I won't care for the source?  Because both of these authors... they're fans of the original.  They love it.  I've heard so many people say, at least of Heartless, that it does everything Alice justice.  If all that's true, what hope is there left for me?  I think maybe my problem is the fact that Alice is always presented as a child questioning the craziness of Wonderland... which is fine, and makes sense to a degree.  I think my greater issue is that every time I see young Alice in Wonderland questioning everything... she's doing so in a manner that implicates that she's annoyed with that world's antics.  But... wouldn't a child, especially an imaginative child, love Wonderland in some way?  Maybe I'm missing a key point.  If I am, please let me know.  Because I just don't get it. 

Funny side note, when I confessed my probable dislike and lack of reading Alice my husband gave the strangest stare.  I don't know if it was because it does seem like something I would enjoy, or because he loves it.  Or some combination of the two. 

Also it could be, at least for After Alice, that I'm not all that into Maguire's writing style.  After all, I attempted Wicked--the novel the Broadway play is based on--and couldn't get into it.  I could also not be all that into The Wizard of Oz either.  There's your third confession and a probable post for another time.

But, what does everyone out there in the world at large think?  Fan of Alice?  No?  Also, I'm hoping to start posting on this blog as a serious venture every Thursday night, as well as sharing it on all my social media pages.  Part of trying to get my name out there as a writer, as it appears that that is what one does now.  Thanks for sticking with me through this, and I'll (hopefully) see you on the next post.