Splintered [Splintered #1]

the premise:

Splintered is a novel, the first of a series or a trilogy, I'm not sure. About Alyssa Gardner, one of the illegitimate American descendants of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland. However, ever since then, the female descendants of Alice all go crazy. They believe this is due to a curse bestowed upon Alice after she caused mistakes in Wonderland, but they couldn't be more wrong. When Alyssa decides to go to Wonderland in order to save her "crazy" mother from a electric shock treatment, she takes her best-friend-and-secret-crush, Jeb although part of her reason for going is to find the boy from her lost memories.

Yes, , it's another love triangle. 

Although I don't even believe that it should be such. Jeb is Alyssa's best friend and although there were times in the novel that he seemed a little sexist and annoyingly Edward-from-Twilight-y, he wasn't as bad as Morpheus. 

I cannot understand why people are Team Morpheus. The guy is not a good guy. He takes all the bad boy, mysterious guys from all other YA paranormal novels and turns them on their heads. He's a selfish, manipulative jerk who has been manipulating Alyssa and her family members for centuries and manipulates Alyssa throughout the novel until the end!

...But more about that later.

I thought the idea of the plot was semi-interesting, a girl who can hear bugs and flowers talk until I actually experienced it through the book and realized I thought it was quite stupid. Why would flowers or bugs say half of the things that Alyssa claimed she heard. But as the novel went on it made more sense.

Morpheus (whose name comes from the Greek God of Dreams) is the boy from Alice's childhood that her mother forced her to forget in her quest to save her from going to Wonderland. Only it turns out everything Alyssa and her past family members thought was wrong. This was actually one of the most annoying parts about this book. Every time we were told something, it turned out that it was wrong and we learned the "real story" ten more times! 

It turns out that the Alice who returned to Earth after her adventures in Wonderland isn't the real Alice Liddell. The real Alice had been locked up in a cage in Wonderland for 75 years while the Red Queen stole her life, married, had children and had grandchildren. Ha! How's that for an evil plan? Morpheus, who is the basically the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland wakes up as a moth, (he was turning from a caterpillar into a moth for apparently the last 75 years-who does that?) and switches the Red Queen and the real Alice's places for the last time. 

But when the Red Queen died, she forced him into making a promise that he has to abide by (another Wonderland tradition that is called Deathspeak) or he loses his soul. This is the reason that Morpheus manipulates the whole novel and Alyssa's existence. He trained her from when she was little (the only childhood he claims to have and this is the reason he claims to "love" Alyssa) until her mother caught wind of what was happening and forced him to leave her alone which works...until Alyssa comes looking for him. 

This is how the novel's events gets started. 

Everything that Alyssa does in the majority of the novel in Wonderland is to right Alice's wrongs (this is before she realizes that her Alice was not the real Alice) when she came to Wonderland the first time so that the crazy-curse and the bug and flower curse will disappear from their family. 

But it turns out that Morpheus is really training her to complete the tasks she has completed which is the only way she can become Queen-his Queen. At this point, the history we've come to believe is disputed again as we learn yet another version of what really happened when Alice came to Wonderland. I was confused and still don't understand what I learned. 

Anyway, Jeb dies and Alyssa uses a wish to wish that he had never came with her to Wonderland, the ghost of her crazy fake-Alice ancestor, Queen Red tries to take over her body but she fails, Morpheus seemingly dies and Alyssa goes home. There she and Jeb get together, Morpheus appears to say he's not dead and he hasn't given up on her and Alyssa's mom gets released from the crazy home.

Although I originally thought I would like this book, the writing in it was a little too disconnected for me and the novel was written in present-tense. But then the talking-flowers-and-the-bugs started to annoy me and so did the whole love triangle too. Alyssa should not even consider being with Morpheus, the guy is crazy and deceitful, but seeing how there is sequel coming out next year to this book called, Unhinged, I fear that the author will break the YA rule and stick Alyssa with Morpheus instead of Jeb. Or, actually since she met Morpheus as a kid then she met him first...

I'll probably read the next book in the series and finish it. I don't think it was a bad idea but the changing background story confused me immensely and I wasn't really invested in the main character due to the writing. Actually, and her own characteristics. I forgot that in the beginning of the novel, she steals almost $300 from Jeb's girlfriend and immediately describes it as borrowing the money and feels no remorse except once. That was completely unrealistic to me for the character we were supposed be sympathizing with. I didn't even get any sense of remorse when she starts making out with the girl (Taelor's) boyfriend, aka Jeb, later on in the book. 

But at least she's from Texas. :)