Alice in Wonderland is my very favorite children’s story, so I was really looking forward to a psychological thriller with loose relation to the classic. Unfortunately, this book went way over my head with its oddities and fantastically weird content. I seriously don’t think I understood 90% of what happened. It reminded me a lot of Mona Awad’s writing with a dash of inspiration drawn from the books Mister Magic.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Henry Holt & Company for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. I would also like to thank Goodreads for giving me a free physical copy.

TW: Cults, CSA, CSE, fighting/violence

I would describe this novel as a psychological character study with thriller elements, and would recommend it for readers who enjoy deep character/sibling relationships and converging storylines.

We follow the relationship of two near-identical twins, after a car crash that causes one to have almost complete amnesia (Kat) - with the only thing she remembers being her sister's name (Jude). She must work to piece together both her past and personality - but when Kat investigates, she realizes that there are inconsistencies in her sister’s stories. Meanwhile, we have occasional flashes to the past from the Jude’s POV - and we (as the reader) can piece together the larger story as told between them both.

This story creates more of a personality study between both of the sisters, and tests their trust and belief in one another. Can Kat really trust her sister, who has lied to her the entire time since her accident? Or should Kat trust her estranged family, who finds her after all these years, instead?

Personally, this book worked less for me as I could predict the story from around the 30% mark and was less invested in how the narrative unfolded. However, if you don’t wish for shocking twists of the narrative, then I think this book would work well for you.

I think one of my biggest issues was Kat’s personality. I understand she lost a great deal of herself due to the amnesia, but regardless she makes very questionable choices that I’m still shocked worked out well for her. For instance, Jude tells her not to leave their apartment when she’s gone, or to not leave their small block - both of which I find very reasonable requests when told to someone who has no memory of their life or how the world works. However, Kat makes the decision fairly early on to not only disobey this, but to follow a strange man she just met into the back room of a bar, filled with other men. Nothing happens because this random man is the love interest, but STILL.

I realize it tells us in the synopsis, but I was expecting this to be much more of a thriller with an unreliable narrator who doesn’t know who she can trust. This book tries to be, but with us having flashbacks to Jude’s memories growing up, we (as the reader) have too much information to doubt the sister, even when she is lying to Kat. I think a much more cohesive story might have only been told from Kat’s POV, where we only learn of things at the same time she does - but as it is, when the big twist is finally revealed to Kat, we already know about it, which takes away the impact.

If you like stories that revolve around cults with strong sibling relationships, with only a few thriller elements, then I would suggest this novel. I did not find any of the twists to be surprising, but I don’t think that is necessarily needed if the character building/relationships and interweaving of the past/present is something you enjoy in a story.