I recently read Marissa Meyer’s 2016 book Heartless. It is a story based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories, with a few references to some familiar nursery rhymes and Edgar Allen Poe thrown in for good measure. I thought that it was an excellent piece of fanfiction and is well worth the read.
I’m not sure if many people refer to this novel as fanfiction, but that is what it is, and it’s not meant to be an insult. As someone that’s written over 1000 pages of fanfiction myself (and have probably read at least a million words of it written by other authors) I happen to like fanfiction. Meyer herself wrote more traditional fanfiction (based on Sailor Moon) years ago, so it probably shouldn’t be surprising that someone can make a career writing fanfiction based on works that are in the public domain.
Heartless delves into the question of “What was the Queen of Hearts like before she became the evil creature that Alice runs into?” It’s a fair question, because most children aren’t calling for the heads of people that they’re angry with. It turns out, at least in Meyer’s world, that the Queen of Hearts was just an ordinary girl with big dreams. Big dreams, a love interest, and a family that didn’t quite have the same dreams for her that she did.
Like most good fanfiction, the story is much richer if you are familiar with the original stories that it is based on. There are characters in this story that you’ll run into that play a minor part in Alice in Wonderland that play a larger part here. You can still enjoy this story even if you aren’t familiar with Alice in Wonderland; the more you know about the original work, the more you will appreciate the little details in this story, however.
I enjoyed most of the elements of this story. Meyer uses beautiful imagery to tell about the treats that the future Queen of Hearts, Cath, makes, she creates an interesting little love story, and the story ends with a good explanation of how the Queen of Hearts becomes the heartless creature that we see in Alice in Wonderland.
This is not a feel-good story, but that’s not really to be expected, because if it truly was a story that emitted happy feels, then the Queen of Hearts wouldn’t become who she becomes. She is a character who, although she is brave in some areas, can’t assert herself in other areas, and is slightly unlikable as a result (overall, I do have a favorable impression of her though). Her love interest, Jest, is a likable guy, and I would have liked to have seen more of the story exploring their relationship. These are just minor complaints, however.
If you haven’t read this story yet, I recommend it, especially if you like stories set in an Alice in Wonderland-style fantasy setting. If you like Lewis Carroll, I definitely recommend it, as there are some passages with witty banter like you would find in the Wonderland stories. Although it is not the best book that I’ve read this year, I did enjoy it a lot, and I kept reading it on my work breaks and in the evenings until I finished it.