3 stars
I’ll admit I’ve never been much of an Alice in Wonderland fan. I prefer tight plots to nonsensical reads. However, I have read some good retellings of Alice’s adventures and wanted to go back to the source material to better understand them.
I can certainly appreciate Carroll’s stories as a historic moment in children’s literature, providing reading that is more fun than instructive. However, the stories just don’t captivate me personally. Interesting things happen and I do enjoy the puns and wordplay, but I don’t feel connected to the characters and the overarching plot is so thin it’s hard to stay engaged with the narration.
I did appreciate that this collection included both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in their full unabridged formats. It was also fascinating to see John Tenniel’s original illustrations, which pair well with the narration and help the reader visualize what is happening (extremely helpful in some cases).
Overall, the book was fine. I can see why it is a classic and why it has such a following, but it’s just not a great fit for me. However, it is nice to read the original stories to better understand the adaptations and retellings.