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Off With Their Heads
Fans of Chloe Gong and Judy I. Lin will devour this Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland retelling about two very wicked girls, forever bonded by blood and betrayal . . .
In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it’s been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn’t commit—and four years since they shattered one another’s hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.
Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro’s betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.
But there’s a secret about the Saints the Queen’s been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other…
Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta—author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers—takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.
In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it’s been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn’t commit—and four years since they shattered one another’s hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.
Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro’s betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.
But there’s a secret about the Saints the Queen’s been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other…
Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta—author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers—takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.
494 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 23, 2024
182 people are currently reading
14977 people want to read
About the author
Zoe Hana Mikuta
4 books1,203 followersauthor | 25 | Seattle
THE COVEN TENDENCY
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
GEARBREAKERS DUOLOGY
THE COVEN TENDENCY
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
GEARBREAKERS DUOLOGY
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 319 reviews
May 18, 2024
( finished. ) 𓆩🍀𓆪 . . . 2 8 / 0 4 / 2 4 ! what the actual fuck happened ? i could not for the life of me tell you what in the gods above just unfolded in these pages.
[falls to the ground and begins to sob uncontrollably. my goodreads avg rating is IN DISTRESS !!]
⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢୭ৎ⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢
⌗ ◌ 🍶𓂃 𓈒𓏸 pre-read
﹙started﹚ㅤ𓈒ㅤׂ 2 8 / 0 4 / 2 4 ⊹
i told ingrid i wouldn't read this but curiosity got the best of me......... 😭 will i be free from my one star curse ? we will see......
[falls to the ground and begins to sob uncontrollably. my goodreads avg rating is IN DISTRESS !!]
⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢୭ৎ⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢
⌗ ◌ 🍶𓂃 𓈒𓏸 pre-read
﹙started﹚ㅤ𓈒ㅤׂ 2 8 / 0 4 / 2 4 ⊹
i told ingrid i wouldn't read this but curiosity got the best of me......... 😭 will i be free from my one star curse ? we will see......
June 12, 2025
In true Alice in Wonderland fashion this sometimes read like complete nonsense – the writing style was confusing to say the least – but I did develop quite the soft spot for this bloodsoaked Korean-inspired queer madness and I overall enjoyed it.
January 25, 2025
overall, the language proved to be more plain confusing than beautifully riddled. i found myself rereading entire sections and was even more lost than i started. the worldbuilding was completely left in the dust along with the plot line and any character building. the story is told in two timelines, a before and after, and it only adds to the confusion. this book is ambitious. it attempts to combine the world of alice in wonderland with korean folklore and depict complex sapphic relationships, but ultimately (very brutally) fails.
December 21, 2024
RATING BREAKDOWN
Characters: 3⭐️
Setting: 5⭐️
Plot: 4⭐️
Themes: 3⭐️
Emotional Impact: 2⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 3⭐️
Total Rounded Average: 3.5 ⭐️
Loved this creepy poetic take on Alice and Wonderland. Dark and mad as the original is, this takes the classic fairytale and goes even more sinister and bizarre. Centering two young witches who experience a devastating loss and are framed for the crime, they battle through Wonderland, a forest of monsters to earn their pardon from the Red Queen. Meanwhile, the Red Queen is newly coronated upon the mysterious death of her mother. The circumstances around the White Queen's death and the magic of the royal line itself are a mystery.
The stylistic writing is such a strength here. The characters are so unique, and their intensity makes for compelling reading. Thematically, the story explores grief, obsession, and the fine line between love and hate, when passion and intensity blur the lines.
This does the original story proud, ages it up, and explores the emotional complexity and horror of loss, obsession, grief, and desperation. I would recommend to readers who love Chloe Gong and Ava Reid stylistically, and to anyone obsessed with fairytale retellings.
Check your trigger warnings on this one. It's YA, but leans heavily into horror.
Note: I received this book and compensation for a review on another platform. This review is not compensated or required.
Characters: 3⭐️
Setting: 5⭐️
Plot: 4⭐️
Themes: 3⭐️
Emotional Impact: 2⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 3⭐️
Total Rounded Average: 3.5 ⭐️
Loved this creepy poetic take on Alice and Wonderland. Dark and mad as the original is, this takes the classic fairytale and goes even more sinister and bizarre. Centering two young witches who experience a devastating loss and are framed for the crime, they battle through Wonderland, a forest of monsters to earn their pardon from the Red Queen. Meanwhile, the Red Queen is newly coronated upon the mysterious death of her mother. The circumstances around the White Queen's death and the magic of the royal line itself are a mystery.
The stylistic writing is such a strength here. The characters are so unique, and their intensity makes for compelling reading. Thematically, the story explores grief, obsession, and the fine line between love and hate, when passion and intensity blur the lines.
This does the original story proud, ages it up, and explores the emotional complexity and horror of loss, obsession, grief, and desperation. I would recommend to readers who love Chloe Gong and Ava Reid stylistically, and to anyone obsessed with fairytale retellings.
Check your trigger warnings on this one. It's YA, but leans heavily into horror.
Note: I received this book and compensation for a review on another platform. This review is not compensated or required.
June 9, 2024
A queer, Korean Alice in Wonderland retelling full of bloody viciousness and twisted magic.
This felt like what I think an acid trip would be like. So apt for an Alice retelling, but ultimately it didn’t work for me.
Caro, Icca, and Tecca are inseparable, sharing a fascination with magic and a disdain for their backwater Ward.
When tragedy strikes, Caro and Icca are sent to Wonderland Forest where they’re at the mercy of the vicious, ravenous Saints.
If they claim four Saints’ heads, they’ll be freed, but the strains of Wonderland cause their love to decay and they separate.
However, the new Red Queen has her own plans for the Saints—and for Caro and Icca, too—yearning to twist them into something new.
This beautifully and horrifically explores grief, obsession, and the fine line to dance between love and hate, intense passion blurring sides.
AKA toxic lesbianism.
Good wouldn’t keep her alive. Good would barely keep her entertained.
This started extremely strong and I was enraptured by the author’s writing. Not to mention, the unique exciting premise and the amazing audiobook narrator but it quickly got bogged down.
We get it. They hate each other. They are evil. They love pain.
The audiobook narrator was incredible and really brought the story alive, but following the story along was near impossible.
I had no idea what was going on and things seemed to happen just for the characters to have another epic evil monologue. They were fun to start with and then got quickly repetitive and unnecessary.
Surely, she must keep running and running, getting wickeder and wickeder—she must be the villain of this story, because with what she’d done to Caro, she had made clear she wasn’t the hero, and to be a side character! A fate worse than death, certainly…
DNF at 70%. Second of the year :(( - June.
Bookstagram
This felt like what I think an acid trip would be like. So apt for an Alice retelling, but ultimately it didn’t work for me.
Caro, Icca, and Tecca are inseparable, sharing a fascination with magic and a disdain for their backwater Ward.
When tragedy strikes, Caro and Icca are sent to Wonderland Forest where they’re at the mercy of the vicious, ravenous Saints.
If they claim four Saints’ heads, they’ll be freed, but the strains of Wonderland cause their love to decay and they separate.
However, the new Red Queen has her own plans for the Saints—and for Caro and Icca, too—yearning to twist them into something new.
This beautifully and horrifically explores grief, obsession, and the fine line to dance between love and hate, intense passion blurring sides.
AKA toxic lesbianism.
Good wouldn’t keep her alive. Good would barely keep her entertained.
This started extremely strong and I was enraptured by the author’s writing. Not to mention, the unique exciting premise and the amazing audiobook narrator but it quickly got bogged down.
We get it. They hate each other. They are evil. They love pain.
The audiobook narrator was incredible and really brought the story alive, but following the story along was near impossible.
I had no idea what was going on and things seemed to happen just for the characters to have another epic evil monologue. They were fun to start with and then got quickly repetitive and unnecessary.
Surely, she must keep running and running, getting wickeder and wickeder—she must be the villain of this story, because with what she’d done to Caro, she had made clear she wasn’t the hero, and to be a side character! A fate worse than death, certainly…
DNF at 70%. Second of the year :(( - June.
Bookstagram
May 28, 2024
I'm 👏🏻 so 👏🏻 mad 👏🏻 at 👏🏻 this 👏🏻 DNF 👏🏻 cause 👏🏻 it's 👏🏻 good 👏🏻 but 👏🏻 I'm 👏🏻 not 👏🏻 connecting 👏🏻 to 👏🏻 it 👏🏻
July 21, 2024
In true Mikuta fashion, her worldbuilding never makes any fucking sense, yet her books are a wild, compelling ride anyway. I had lots of fun. I loved the weirdness, the darkness, the messed up relationship between the three girls. Caro and Icca have a lovers-to-enemies relationship (they spend the entirety of the present timeline wanting to kill each other), while Caro and Hattie have a codependent platonic sister-like relationship (Caro worships Hattie, loves her, and demands her attention; Hattie is fond of Caro but wouldn't save her life if it took too much effort). By the end, I realized all three girls just wanted desperately to be seen -- to have someone love you so much that you'll never be alone, that they know everything about you. But in real life, people disappoint you, and no matter how hard you try, you're still two separate people who will never truly understand one another.
Oh, that's bleak. I'm sorry.
This is a Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland world except all of those descriptions are simply for the aesthetics. It's very much an old-fashioned fantasy: a dangerous world surrounded by deadly monsters; small towns that suffocate our ambitious protagonists until they're punished in a freak accident and forced to become monster hunters; royalty who can't care less about their populace; and ultra powerful, inscrutable magic. But the truth is, it's a story about three powerful messed up women who just love getting in the way of each other's plans.
Someone compared Mikuta to Tamsyn Muir -- both write weird, almost-incomprehensible sapphic SFF -- and I agree; except that Mikuta's writing is at least more understandable.
Unfortunately, this book is about a hundred pages too long. The first half was very promising. It revealed how Caro and Icca became this way, and what their evil plans are now. Then nothing happens for a good chunk of the second half, and I was frustrated at how very little was resolved by the ending. I mean, I was still really confused at the end. So it knocked this book down from 4 stars to 3 stars. I still vastly prefer Gearbreakers. Off With Their Heads is very love-it-or-hate-it, so I highly recommend for you to read a sample before purchasing.
Oh, that's bleak. I'm sorry.
This is a Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland world except all of those descriptions are simply for the aesthetics. It's very much an old-fashioned fantasy: a dangerous world surrounded by deadly monsters; small towns that suffocate our ambitious protagonists until they're punished in a freak accident and forced to become monster hunters; royalty who can't care less about their populace; and ultra powerful, inscrutable magic. But the truth is, it's a story about three powerful messed up women who just love getting in the way of each other's plans.
Someone compared Mikuta to Tamsyn Muir -- both write weird, almost-incomprehensible sapphic SFF -- and I agree; except that Mikuta's writing is at least more understandable.
Unfortunately, this book is about a hundred pages too long. The first half was very promising. It revealed how Caro and Icca became this way, and what their evil plans are now. Then nothing happens for a good chunk of the second half, and I was frustrated at how very little was resolved by the ending. I mean, I was still really confused at the end. So it knocked this book down from 4 stars to 3 stars. I still vastly prefer Gearbreakers. Off With Their Heads is very love-it-or-hate-it, so I highly recommend for you to read a sample before purchasing.
May 16, 2024
I can definitely see why this is getting either 5-stars, or 1-star reviews, because it's such A TRIP of a book. If you're not into it by page 50 or so, it's not going to be for you, and unfortunately the marketing isn't exactly truthful, because it is hard to describe this book at all. Yes, it's loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland, though really only with some aesthetics and character design choices, and has some monsters and myths from Korean mythology. There's not really any romance in this at all - the two main leads hate each other so intensely but still can't live without each other. There's tons of inner monologues from insane characters, characters who can slip their consciousness into other characters, trippy magic that can't be described clearly, and a narrator who is sometimes intentionally smearing the details.
I happened to love it.
The characters are visceral. Their hatred, their curiosity, their absolute madness, I ate it up. I enjoyed trying to piece together what the hell was happening among all the body horror and violating mind games. The characters really are all awful, and they don't really get better or change their ways. If you really mean it when you say you want mean, selfish lesbians, HERE is where it is. The lore is fascinating, creating intrigue and mystery around the character of Hattie, and even when she gets her POV chapters, it's not really clear what she wants. The characters want to kill each other, get Hattie's attention, kill Hattie, or just fuck with one another. But I think that's part of the fun.
Like I said, if you don't get into this within the first 50 or so pages, you will not get into it at all, because it just gets weirder and weirder.
I happened to love it.
The characters are visceral. Their hatred, their curiosity, their absolute madness, I ate it up. I enjoyed trying to piece together what the hell was happening among all the body horror and violating mind games. The characters really are all awful, and they don't really get better or change their ways. If you really mean it when you say you want mean, selfish lesbians, HERE is where it is. The lore is fascinating, creating intrigue and mystery around the character of Hattie, and even when she gets her POV chapters, it's not really clear what she wants. The characters want to kill each other, get Hattie's attention, kill Hattie, or just fuck with one another. But I think that's part of the fun.
Like I said, if you don't get into this within the first 50 or so pages, you will not get into it at all, because it just gets weirder and weirder.
August 5, 2023
I´m sorry, but I think this cover just awoke something within me. What is it, you might ask? Oh, nothing much, just heart-stopping lesbianism.
And let´s not forget this killer of a description; blood and betrayal meet in this sapphic, Korean-inspired re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, which tells the tale of two girls whose twisted past comes to light as they are once again thrust into each others lives and beckoned back to the dark, monster-filled forest where it all began: Wonderland.
Like, hello??? 991??? Yeah, I would like to report a soon-to-be murder, ´cause I think I am actively dying right now. 2024 is going to be a great year for us sapphics, I can feel it already.
And let´s not forget this killer of a description; blood and betrayal meet in this sapphic, Korean-inspired re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, which tells the tale of two girls whose twisted past comes to light as they are once again thrust into each others lives and beckoned back to the dark, monster-filled forest where it all began: Wonderland.
Like, hello??? 991??? Yeah, I would like to report a soon-to-be murder, ´cause I think I am actively dying right now. 2024 is going to be a great year for us sapphics, I can feel it already.
August 20, 2024
erm. dnf at 10% ❤️
·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ this book was awful. i seriously expected better from a sapphic korean alice in wonderland retelling (WE WERE ROBBED 😭), but i was disappointed. it was just words on a page; nothing connected, nothing flowed. it was such a headache.
i think the intent of the author was to mimic the "nonsense" feel of the original, but they got it wrong: the original flowed. it worked. even was it was at its most dreamlike and surreal, it was nice to read and everything transitioned smoothly. i genuinely cannot overstate how disjointed and nauseous this read in comparision.
0.5 stars (point five for concept 💔)
·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ this book was awful. i seriously expected better from a sapphic korean alice in wonderland retelling (WE WERE ROBBED 😭), but i was disappointed. it was just words on a page; nothing connected, nothing flowed. it was such a headache.
i think the intent of the author was to mimic the "nonsense" feel of the original, but they got it wrong: the original flowed. it worked. even was it was at its most dreamlike and surreal, it was nice to read and everything transitioned smoothly. i genuinely cannot overstate how disjointed and nauseous this read in comparision.
0.5 stars (point five for concept 💔)
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December 8, 2024I'm not sure how to rate this because I'm not sure I even understand what happened 😭
January 28, 2025
DNFing books can be self-care too 
(28%)
(28%)
September 19, 2025
YA fantasy finally has a book with unhinged girl protagonists that is done well and doesn't stray into girlboss territory. Nature is healing!
According to an old creation story, this is a different Wonderland. One dreamed up by the original Alice as she slept in a field of flowers. Perhaps that's how this world began, perhaps it didn't. At least, that's how the two witches Carousel Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle in Isanghan believe the world came to be...
In the past, Caro and Icca are girlfriends and along with their friend Tecca they attend the school for witches to hone their powers. But then one day, their world is torn apart. One of the monstrous Saints--twisted-looking creatures who were once human warriors who defended Isanghan from saltfever--attacks Tecca and her family. Caro and Icca try to retrieve her body before the Saint mutilates her, but unknown to both girls Tecca is still alive; and in their attempt to take her body away, they kill her. Both are marked with the death trace and sentence to the forest of Wonderland were they must bring four Saints' heads to the queen to absolve themselves. However, the girls' love for each other, and for the violence they so crave to wrought, will be tested in the wilds of Wonderland.
In the present, Caro hunts Saints for the Red Queen Hattie November Kkul. Her death trace long gone, her crow magic well strengthened, and her mind permanently shattered, she merely takes pleasure in her killing of Saints and serving Hattie, who she hopes who will return her love someday. Icca, on the other hand, hunts the Saints as well with her own mind on the verge of breaking, but plans to take down Hattie--and Caro too, if she can. She has no desire for revolution or fixing things in Isanghan, she just wants to kill those she greatly detests. So Icca hatches a plan along with her boy toy Mordekai Cheshire to assassinate Hattie. Things do not go as planned. An unknown and unreliable narrator tells us this story about two horrible girls, sometimes breaking in to give us their own thoughts.
Off With Their Heads is genuine fresh breath of air to YA fantasy. It isn't perfect, but it brings a much needed new voice and direction to the genre, especially for fairy-tale retellings. The number one thing Off With Their Heads does so differently than the rest is that it disregards the rules. Yes, there is some world-building and there is some sort of hint of a magic system, but it doesn't reveal those in the traditional way. True to its nonsensical fairy-tale roots, it doesn't focus on the technicalities and more focuses on the psychological development, toxic sapphicness, and just total insanity of the characters and the plot over anything else. This is one of those stories where how the magic works is not at all a concern, the narrator even says at one point that neither Caro nor Icca really know or care how witches' magic works and that the narrator themselves has no interest in discovering how either. Some people who cling too much to the necessity of thoroughly explained "magic systems" will be dissatisfied with this, but as someone who enjoys fantasy intersecting with the Weird and stories were magic is more mysterious, I was perfectly fine with it and welcomed it presence. On the other hand, the world-building part gets a bit more fleshed out in some areas. The whole thing about this world being a dream from the original Alice is occasionally touched upon and there isn't much else done with it. None of the other characters, besides Caro and Icca, really seem to think about it or acknowledge. I took this as it maybe being apart of Caro and Icca's deluded minds, but I think Zoe Hana Mikuta could've done a bit more with it.
What I found most fascinating about the world-building was the concept of religion and Divinity. Yes, there are churches in this Korean-inspired world and Hattie is seen as a high priestess of sorts, but Divinity here is something both animistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic all at once. Things within nature itself can become gods to different people, but so can concepts themselves. For example, Icca can manipulate shadows and darkness as her magic and the Dark (capitalization important) is one of her gods. Caro enjoys killing and bloodshed, so Carnage is one of her gods. Likewise, Caro's magic allows her to jump into the bodies of crows and other birds and control them in other ways, thus another one of her gods is Birds. To paraphrase one page, the whole tableau of reality is Divinity, but these specific elements are personal gods for the characters. This, to me, explains the weirdness, nonsense, and just craziness of this world and how it all worked. Technically, magic is everywhere here and its constantly acting against or with the characters and their personal gods. Again, not everyone will be satisfied with, and I will admit that some of the explanations are not always clear cut, but for me it just works for this story. I don't need every YA fantasy (or even Adult or Middle Grade) to be so strict with the rules.
This Weird (and I'm using capital here to refer to both as a concept and to the genre itself) and craziness feeds into the characters and their development as well, especially Caro who was my favorite. Caro, as I said, is bat shit insane; most of the characters are--they're all mad here--but she is the most. She's a lesbian who both loves too much and doesn't get enough of the love both she wants and needs. In the past, she does love Icca and they both initially plan, with Tecca, to overthrow the Kkul dynasty. Even in the past, Caro has a desire for violence; there's no explanation to where and how that desire comes from, which I would've liked a line or two as to why she desires violence. My personal interpretation is that she simply desired violence because she could desire it. However, Caro also seems to have a form of arrested development in the present, something more implied at than outright exposed. Essentially, Caro goes from a girl in love who wants to fight to a girl who has her love and world shattered, to a young woman who both denies she wants love and also greatly wants love from Hattie. We'll talk about Hattie in a minute. Caro also seems to both want to love Icca again too, but also wants her death--the feelings are mutual. It's all very toxic, messy, and sapphic. Caro defines herself as being past her and Icca's failed relationship, but also cannot stop thinking about it. She's a young woman swallowing her pains and doubts and even when those pains and doubts are exposed to her and the other characters she either casually continues to deny them or just acts stunned.
What will quench Caro's hunger the most is Hattie's returned love and Icca's destruction, preferably at her own hands. She is so driven by this desire, the mania of it rather, that she begins speaking to herself. These moments made me wonder if Caro had a split personality of some sort, but like the arrested development, it's more implied than anything. However, Caro is more than just her damaged mind and her crazed outbursts; she's also wickedly funny. The humor in Off With Their Heads ranges from snarky and edgy to gallows and Caro is partially the main supplier for it. The way she teases Icca later in the book, while upsetting to the former, did illicit a chuckle from me. And at one point where Cheshire's magic is being used by Hattie and Caro sits on him, looking at him, wondering why Icca takes him as a companion. During the moment, Caro reaffirms herself she's a lesbian, but she also tries to stick her finger down Cheshire's mouth just for the Hell of it. It was so weird and out of pocket, but it made me laugh. So many YA writers try to do an unhinged or immoral main girl character, but many of them miss the mark. These characters tell us they're immoral but they rarely do anything that's shockingly immoral or unhinged. Caro is the ultimate answer to that. I loved every chapter with her as the main perspective, her unhinged head was a great place to be in.
Icca has her own mental strife. She's more stable than Caro, but is at the same time on the verge of breaking. She is Hell bent on getting vengeance on Hattie and Caro for Tecca's death and the Saints running amok. I must remind people that Icca is no vigilante nor is she the typical YA fantasy protagonist, the plucky teen seeking to overthrow an oppressive society. Yes, she wants Hattie to be torn apart by the very Saints her family created and to see Isanghan in shambles, but she doesn't seek to rule it in Hattie's place. She does not care about any other injustice plaguing Isanghan--Hattie and her Saints merely terrify her, remind her of Tecca's fate, and that is more than enough for her. Like Caro, she is a horrible girl, but Mikuta still stays true to her writing skill and doesn't fumble it. However, unlike Caro, Icca thinks she's more justified in her horribleness. Whereas Caro's being unhinged and horrible--yes, I've said horrible a lot, I'm sorry--is more just for her own pure delight and desire for love and destruction in tandem, Icca is the way she is because she believes her cause (for lack of a better word) gives her the right to be. She believes what happened between her and Caro in Wonderland in the past, Tecca's death, and the continued onslaught by the Saints fuels her grief and rage. She never outspokenly positions herself about Caro or anyone else, though she isn't humble either. She is bisexual and after Caro seems to have entered into briefer relationships with other people, but contains a more or less continued one with Cheshire; both her and him understand that they're horrible people and will truly never actually love each other, which was a nice addition to both of their characters and the story. Icca's grief was much more apparent than Caro's and I did at times feel really bad for her; I had a feeling that none of this would go well for her (it didn't at all), but I still rooted for her in a way. She seeks Caro's destruction, but it isn't her primary goal like her own destruction is to Caro; it's more something she hopes will happen along the way. Nonetheless, she too is in denial of the love she still holds for Caro, probably because her hatred for her is more apparent.
And that's just another thing I love about this book. The repressed love and screaming hatred the girls have for each other is so palpable. Mikuta reigns in on neither of them and it makes the whole story so much more dramatic and wild and those emotions are constantly floating in the atmosphere. I really did feel bad for Icca. I both applauded her actions and shook my head at her.
Hattie on the other hand is a very demure, asexual girl. Her motivations for creating more Saints and personal goals are opaque to us at first. Her personal god is Quiet, so that explains why she's so soft-spoken and is often emotionless. Hattie has her own madness within her Quiet--not all mad girls scream wildly and crave to carve each other up. There is a mystery behind her ascent to the throne and her mother's death, but I shall not spoil it here. I will say I did not see it coming, there were some hints that I didn't even realize were hints until after the reveal. Hattie is an interesting character, but I preferred Icca and Caro's headspaces over hers because of just how crazy Mikuta could get with the writing while we looked through their eyes. The writing is still good in Hattie's perspective, but it's being intentionally attenuated for the sake of her emotions and the secrecy. like Icca, she breaks later on too, but it's a much slow descent that I quite liked.
What aids the girls' psychological development and their emotions is the prose. Mikuta's prose here is atmospheric while also adhering the literary nonsense genre of which its source material is apart of. The aforementioned narrator breaks the fourth wall, cuts in at times, lectures us, stops sentences, and restarts sentences at various places. Also, the words used to describe the girls' emotional states and also the actions taking place, from the fight scenes to just movements and gestures, all stay apart of that atmospheric and nonsense tone. It's nor what you'd call florid, necessarily, but it is certainly different. It really does feel like you're in the head of something going insane or who is already insane. The fight scenes are just so good as well. Mikuta gets inventive with the magic and how the girls kill the Saints and hwo their bodies feel when they're hurt or they hurt the Saints. It's all bloody and pulpy and squishy. I love it. Off With Their Heads is Weird, it's different, and it's just outright refreshing. It makes me super excited to read Mikuta's other book The Coven Tendency later this year. In general, if you are a fan of the writing style of Gideon the Ninth, you might enjoy this.
The ending is very strange and I'm not sure I totally understood, yet I found it oddly fitting for the end trajectories of Caro, Icca, and Hattie.
I do have some criticisms though. First is the pacing. It is slow at first, but it does eventually pick up, though I felt at times it slowed down again. Second, as much as I loved the prose and the descriptions, there were a few times i had to reread the sentences because I wasn't sure what exactly I read; it's not poorly written, not at all! It's just sometimes I was like, "What...?" Thirdly, I was a bit disappointed with how things ended with Cheshire. He wasn't a major character, so I didn't expect much, but I'm a little confused as to what his fate was. Is he dead? I don't know.
This book will not be for everyone, I get that, but I just do not understand the lower reviews of this book. Despite my criticisms, I don't think it's THAT confusing or that hard to read. I mean, you guys wanted a YA fantasy that was different and when you finally got one and now you don't like it. Please, don't take that last sentence too harshly; I'm not trying to be mean, but do give the book a chance.
I wholly welcome Mikuta's voice and writing in the YA space, because it is so much needed. If you want unhinged sapphic girls, read this book! If you want YA fantasy that does away with the rules, read this book! Just read it! And if you think you're going mad while reading it, don't worry. Everyone's mad in it.
According to an old creation story, this is a different Wonderland. One dreamed up by the original Alice as she slept in a field of flowers. Perhaps that's how this world began, perhaps it didn't. At least, that's how the two witches Carousel Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle in Isanghan believe the world came to be...
In the past, Caro and Icca are girlfriends and along with their friend Tecca they attend the school for witches to hone their powers. But then one day, their world is torn apart. One of the monstrous Saints--twisted-looking creatures who were once human warriors who defended Isanghan from saltfever--attacks Tecca and her family. Caro and Icca try to retrieve her body before the Saint mutilates her, but unknown to both girls Tecca is still alive; and in their attempt to take her body away, they kill her. Both are marked with the death trace and sentence to the forest of Wonderland were they must bring four Saints' heads to the queen to absolve themselves. However, the girls' love for each other, and for the violence they so crave to wrought, will be tested in the wilds of Wonderland.
In the present, Caro hunts Saints for the Red Queen Hattie November Kkul. Her death trace long gone, her crow magic well strengthened, and her mind permanently shattered, she merely takes pleasure in her killing of Saints and serving Hattie, who she hopes who will return her love someday. Icca, on the other hand, hunts the Saints as well with her own mind on the verge of breaking, but plans to take down Hattie--and Caro too, if she can. She has no desire for revolution or fixing things in Isanghan, she just wants to kill those she greatly detests. So Icca hatches a plan along with her boy toy Mordekai Cheshire to assassinate Hattie. Things do not go as planned. An unknown and unreliable narrator tells us this story about two horrible girls, sometimes breaking in to give us their own thoughts.
Off With Their Heads is genuine fresh breath of air to YA fantasy. It isn't perfect, but it brings a much needed new voice and direction to the genre, especially for fairy-tale retellings. The number one thing Off With Their Heads does so differently than the rest is that it disregards the rules. Yes, there is some world-building and there is some sort of hint of a magic system, but it doesn't reveal those in the traditional way. True to its nonsensical fairy-tale roots, it doesn't focus on the technicalities and more focuses on the psychological development, toxic sapphicness, and just total insanity of the characters and the plot over anything else. This is one of those stories where how the magic works is not at all a concern, the narrator even says at one point that neither Caro nor Icca really know or care how witches' magic works and that the narrator themselves has no interest in discovering how either. Some people who cling too much to the necessity of thoroughly explained "magic systems" will be dissatisfied with this, but as someone who enjoys fantasy intersecting with the Weird and stories were magic is more mysterious, I was perfectly fine with it and welcomed it presence. On the other hand, the world-building part gets a bit more fleshed out in some areas. The whole thing about this world being a dream from the original Alice is occasionally touched upon and there isn't much else done with it. None of the other characters, besides Caro and Icca, really seem to think about it or acknowledge. I took this as it maybe being apart of Caro and Icca's deluded minds, but I think Zoe Hana Mikuta could've done a bit more with it.
What I found most fascinating about the world-building was the concept of religion and Divinity. Yes, there are churches in this Korean-inspired world and Hattie is seen as a high priestess of sorts, but Divinity here is something both animistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic all at once. Things within nature itself can become gods to different people, but so can concepts themselves. For example, Icca can manipulate shadows and darkness as her magic and the Dark (capitalization important) is one of her gods. Caro enjoys killing and bloodshed, so Carnage is one of her gods. Likewise, Caro's magic allows her to jump into the bodies of crows and other birds and control them in other ways, thus another one of her gods is Birds. To paraphrase one page, the whole tableau of reality is Divinity, but these specific elements are personal gods for the characters. This, to me, explains the weirdness, nonsense, and just craziness of this world and how it all worked. Technically, magic is everywhere here and its constantly acting against or with the characters and their personal gods. Again, not everyone will be satisfied with, and I will admit that some of the explanations are not always clear cut, but for me it just works for this story. I don't need every YA fantasy (or even Adult or Middle Grade) to be so strict with the rules.
This Weird (and I'm using capital here to refer to both as a concept and to the genre itself) and craziness feeds into the characters and their development as well, especially Caro who was my favorite. Caro, as I said, is bat shit insane; most of the characters are--they're all mad here--but she is the most. She's a lesbian who both loves too much and doesn't get enough of the love both she wants and needs. In the past, she does love Icca and they both initially plan, with Tecca, to overthrow the Kkul dynasty. Even in the past, Caro has a desire for violence; there's no explanation to where and how that desire comes from, which I would've liked a line or two as to why she desires violence. My personal interpretation is that she simply desired violence because she could desire it. However, Caro also seems to have a form of arrested development in the present, something more implied at than outright exposed. Essentially, Caro goes from a girl in love who wants to fight to a girl who has her love and world shattered, to a young woman who both denies she wants love and also greatly wants love from Hattie. We'll talk about Hattie in a minute. Caro also seems to both want to love Icca again too, but also wants her death--the feelings are mutual. It's all very toxic, messy, and sapphic. Caro defines herself as being past her and Icca's failed relationship, but also cannot stop thinking about it. She's a young woman swallowing her pains and doubts and even when those pains and doubts are exposed to her and the other characters she either casually continues to deny them or just acts stunned.
What will quench Caro's hunger the most is Hattie's returned love and Icca's destruction, preferably at her own hands. She is so driven by this desire, the mania of it rather, that she begins speaking to herself. These moments made me wonder if Caro had a split personality of some sort, but like the arrested development, it's more implied than anything. However, Caro is more than just her damaged mind and her crazed outbursts; she's also wickedly funny. The humor in Off With Their Heads ranges from snarky and edgy to gallows and Caro is partially the main supplier for it. The way she teases Icca later in the book, while upsetting to the former, did illicit a chuckle from me. And at one point where Cheshire's magic is being used by Hattie and Caro sits on him, looking at him, wondering why Icca takes him as a companion. During the moment, Caro reaffirms herself she's a lesbian, but she also tries to stick her finger down Cheshire's mouth just for the Hell of it. It was so weird and out of pocket, but it made me laugh. So many YA writers try to do an unhinged or immoral main girl character, but many of them miss the mark. These characters tell us they're immoral but they rarely do anything that's shockingly immoral or unhinged. Caro is the ultimate answer to that. I loved every chapter with her as the main perspective, her unhinged head was a great place to be in.
Icca has her own mental strife. She's more stable than Caro, but is at the same time on the verge of breaking. She is Hell bent on getting vengeance on Hattie and Caro for Tecca's death and the Saints running amok. I must remind people that Icca is no vigilante nor is she the typical YA fantasy protagonist, the plucky teen seeking to overthrow an oppressive society. Yes, she wants Hattie to be torn apart by the very Saints her family created and to see Isanghan in shambles, but she doesn't seek to rule it in Hattie's place. She does not care about any other injustice plaguing Isanghan--Hattie and her Saints merely terrify her, remind her of Tecca's fate, and that is more than enough for her. Like Caro, she is a horrible girl, but Mikuta still stays true to her writing skill and doesn't fumble it. However, unlike Caro, Icca thinks she's more justified in her horribleness. Whereas Caro's being unhinged and horrible--yes, I've said horrible a lot, I'm sorry--is more just for her own pure delight and desire for love and destruction in tandem, Icca is the way she is because she believes her cause (for lack of a better word) gives her the right to be. She believes what happened between her and Caro in Wonderland in the past, Tecca's death, and the continued onslaught by the Saints fuels her grief and rage. She never outspokenly positions herself about Caro or anyone else, though she isn't humble either. She is bisexual and after Caro seems to have entered into briefer relationships with other people, but contains a more or less continued one with Cheshire; both her and him understand that they're horrible people and will truly never actually love each other, which was a nice addition to both of their characters and the story. Icca's grief was much more apparent than Caro's and I did at times feel really bad for her; I had a feeling that none of this would go well for her (it didn't at all), but I still rooted for her in a way. She seeks Caro's destruction, but it isn't her primary goal like her own destruction is to Caro; it's more something she hopes will happen along the way. Nonetheless, she too is in denial of the love she still holds for Caro, probably because her hatred for her is more apparent.
And that's just another thing I love about this book. The repressed love and screaming hatred the girls have for each other is so palpable. Mikuta reigns in on neither of them and it makes the whole story so much more dramatic and wild and those emotions are constantly floating in the atmosphere. I really did feel bad for Icca. I both applauded her actions and shook my head at her.
Hattie on the other hand is a very demure, asexual girl. Her motivations for creating more Saints and personal goals are opaque to us at first. Her personal god is Quiet, so that explains why she's so soft-spoken and is often emotionless. Hattie has her own madness within her Quiet--not all mad girls scream wildly and crave to carve each other up. There is a mystery behind her ascent to the throne and her mother's death, but I shall not spoil it here. I will say I did not see it coming, there were some hints that I didn't even realize were hints until after the reveal. Hattie is an interesting character, but I preferred Icca and Caro's headspaces over hers because of just how crazy Mikuta could get with the writing while we looked through their eyes. The writing is still good in Hattie's perspective, but it's being intentionally attenuated for the sake of her emotions and the secrecy. like Icca, she breaks later on too, but it's a much slow descent that I quite liked.
What aids the girls' psychological development and their emotions is the prose. Mikuta's prose here is atmospheric while also adhering the literary nonsense genre of which its source material is apart of. The aforementioned narrator breaks the fourth wall, cuts in at times, lectures us, stops sentences, and restarts sentences at various places. Also, the words used to describe the girls' emotional states and also the actions taking place, from the fight scenes to just movements and gestures, all stay apart of that atmospheric and nonsense tone. It's nor what you'd call florid, necessarily, but it is certainly different. It really does feel like you're in the head of something going insane or who is already insane. The fight scenes are just so good as well. Mikuta gets inventive with the magic and how the girls kill the Saints and hwo their bodies feel when they're hurt or they hurt the Saints. It's all bloody and pulpy and squishy. I love it. Off With Their Heads is Weird, it's different, and it's just outright refreshing. It makes me super excited to read Mikuta's other book The Coven Tendency later this year. In general, if you are a fan of the writing style of Gideon the Ninth, you might enjoy this.
The ending is very strange and I'm not sure I totally understood, yet I found it oddly fitting for the end trajectories of Caro, Icca, and Hattie.
I do have some criticisms though. First is the pacing. It is slow at first, but it does eventually pick up, though I felt at times it slowed down again. Second, as much as I loved the prose and the descriptions, there were a few times i had to reread the sentences because I wasn't sure what exactly I read; it's not poorly written, not at all! It's just sometimes I was like, "What...?" Thirdly, I was a bit disappointed with how things ended with Cheshire. He wasn't a major character, so I didn't expect much, but I'm a little confused as to what his fate was. Is he dead? I don't know.
This book will not be for everyone, I get that, but I just do not understand the lower reviews of this book. Despite my criticisms, I don't think it's THAT confusing or that hard to read. I mean, you guys wanted a YA fantasy that was different and when you finally got one and now you don't like it. Please, don't take that last sentence too harshly; I'm not trying to be mean, but do give the book a chance.
I wholly welcome Mikuta's voice and writing in the YA space, because it is so much needed. If you want unhinged sapphic girls, read this book! If you want YA fantasy that does away with the rules, read this book! Just read it! And if you think you're going mad while reading it, don't worry. Everyone's mad in it.
August 12, 2024
vicious & visceral; batshit obsessive girls in a world twisted with the leaking madness of saints; a singularly fascinating and sure voice and entry into YA you just have to let pull you along (or down). for fans of weird fantasy or anyone trained on stuff like gideon the ninth (me) - it's delightfully deranged, and besides icca and caro there's the red queen and cheshire, who are both incredible delights. but there's also utter tenderness and rawness and want and fear for knowing. it's about mourning of past selves and the (terrifying, exhilarating) change of knowing another entirely (perhaps then, perhaps now).
mikuta's wonderland stitches itself to your dark spots and makes them dance till your soles come off. god i loved this so much
mikuta's wonderland stitches itself to your dark spots and makes them dance till your soles come off. god i loved this so much
Want to read
December 3, 2022holy fuck help
October 19, 2024
(Edit, oct. 19: planning on eventually rewriting parts of this review. I sound like a pretentious fuck.)
Incoherent in ways that seemed sometimes deliberate, and other times because of overindulgence. The author seems to know her characters very well, which would normally be a compliment, but the rambles prevalent in the writing style seemed to insert her own analysis and thoughts more than once. (I have mixed feelings on the narrator character, if you can’t tell.)
I liked the middle/third quarter though, when I started to be able to settle into the different kinds of madness each character represented, and thought that Hattie’s near-invincibility, combined with her chilling collectedness, made her more of a horror movie monster rather than a Mary Sue. (But it is a little frustrating to not know the limits of her magic, especially by the end.) The magic itself was gruesome in an artistic way…while I can’t get behind “Off With Their Heads”s specific kind of prose, I really enjoyed the body horror embedded in the fantasy—particularly with Icca’s decline, and, in general, Hattie’s abilities.
I appreciate some of the concepts it was going for: I liked the casual inclusion of Korean honorifics and even some cultural dress, the thrill of Caro and Icca’s back and forth(even if they got very predictable and the wording was repetitive—we know they want to love and kill and die alongside each other! Goddamnit!), and the built-up dread in the first quarter. (When there were actual stakes in the story… sigh.) But the retelling aspect felt just like aesthetics or set dressing, I either tolerated or hated the new interpretations of different characters (I never cared about Cheshire. He was annoying, and his quasi-love triangle thing with Icca lead to nothing), and if it weren’t for detailed notes I kept in my phone as I was reading, I would’ve never known a thing about what was happening. Icca’s trial (or rather, the idea of it), and the Saint Races were the two events in the story that left me the most confused. But the entire ending was a mess. I liked some of the imagery, but I feel like the “villain in someone else’s story” route taken in Icca’s POV didn’t suit what I’d read from her character.
There were a couple of nods to the original Alice In Wonderland that, although meant to be clever callbacks, made me put my book down or laugh. “Wonderland is like a looking glass”, the “eat me” callback, stop😭😭
(And although Caro and Icca’s antics were fun to read about, I didn’t feel their chemistry. I started feeling detached from whatever kind of romantic or sexual tension they had. They’re also a main part of an overarching issue in this book, which is that the moral grayness—and evil—of the characters doesn’t feel complex, but overdone and even edgy.)
ummm additional star though because a.) there were a couple of quotes that were bangers (“glorious magic was seen in those days, but also glorious hubris”🔥🔥), b.) I think I analyzed this too much as I was reading because Caro and Icca, as a concept, became FASCINATING to me and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book until I read the ending and the little embers of faith I had were snuffed out like a candle… in my own words via Instagram DM’s, “get yourself a book so bad you hyperfixate on it”?!
Incoherent in ways that seemed sometimes deliberate, and other times because of overindulgence. The author seems to know her characters very well, which would normally be a compliment, but the rambles prevalent in the writing style seemed to insert her own analysis and thoughts more than once. (I have mixed feelings on the narrator character, if you can’t tell.)
I liked the middle/third quarter though, when I started to be able to settle into the different kinds of madness each character represented, and thought that Hattie’s near-invincibility, combined with her chilling collectedness, made her more of a horror movie monster rather than a Mary Sue. (But it is a little frustrating to not know the limits of her magic, especially by the end.) The magic itself was gruesome in an artistic way…while I can’t get behind “Off With Their Heads”s specific kind of prose, I really enjoyed the body horror embedded in the fantasy—particularly with Icca’s decline, and, in general, Hattie’s abilities.
I appreciate some of the concepts it was going for: I liked the casual inclusion of Korean honorifics and even some cultural dress, the thrill of Caro and Icca’s back and forth(even if they got very predictable and the wording was repetitive—we know they want to love and kill and die alongside each other! Goddamnit!), and the built-up dread in the first quarter. (When there were actual stakes in the story… sigh.) But the retelling aspect felt just like aesthetics or set dressing, I either tolerated or hated the new interpretations of different characters (I never cared about Cheshire. He was annoying, and his quasi-love triangle thing with Icca lead to nothing), and if it weren’t for detailed notes I kept in my phone as I was reading, I would’ve never known a thing about what was happening. Icca’s trial (or rather, the idea of it), and the Saint Races were the two events in the story that left me the most confused. But the entire ending was a mess. I liked some of the imagery, but I feel like the “villain in someone else’s story” route taken in Icca’s POV didn’t suit what I’d read from her character.
There were a couple of nods to the original Alice In Wonderland that, although meant to be clever callbacks, made me put my book down or laugh. “Wonderland is like a looking glass”, the “eat me” callback, stop😭😭
(And although Caro and Icca’s antics were fun to read about, I didn’t feel their chemistry. I started feeling detached from whatever kind of romantic or sexual tension they had. They’re also a main part of an overarching issue in this book, which is that the moral grayness—and evil—of the characters doesn’t feel complex, but overdone and even edgy.)
ummm additional star though because a.) there were a couple of quotes that were bangers (“glorious magic was seen in those days, but also glorious hubris”🔥🔥), b.) I think I analyzed this too much as I was reading because Caro and Icca, as a concept, became FASCINATING to me and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book until I read the ending and the little embers of faith I had were snuffed out like a candle… in my own words via Instagram DM’s, “get yourself a book so bad you hyperfixate on it”?!
July 10, 2024
worth the what the fucks
June 21, 2024
This took me a while to finish. Going in, I was so intrigued by this brutal, bloody retelling of Alice in Wonderland, but I ended up with really mixed feelings. It's to be expected for an Alice in Wonderland retelling/reimagining that it would be nonsensical at times, but this book skipped past nonsensical into unintelligible for a good majority of the story. I did put in a good effort to follow along with the story, and I enjoyed what I was able to understand, or at least go along with and vibe with, but at times the narration lost me completely. In the end I didn't feel like the pay-off was worth all the effort, as I was hoping the story would start to make a little more sense the further in we got.
January 28, 2025
the disappointment i felt for this book after waiting so long for it is the worst heartbreak i’ve felt yet and i’ve broken up with people before
March 4, 2025
it took me longer than necessary to finish this book because i didn’t want it to end. i reread multiple sections instead of going on to actually finish the book bcs 1.) i was relishing it i suppose and 2.) it lowkey fucked with my brain a bit so i had to go back in order to make some sense of it all.
the writing is just fantastical and i, politely, wish to drown in it. did i understand it all? no. did it make me Feel Something? YES.
the story was so bizarre but so Beautiful and so wonderfully mad. i did not expect the ending but all’s well that ends well, even in wonderland.
anyway i love them but not quite as much as they love each other.
also this was written by julie’s niece/dami’s cousin and i feel that important to note 🤞
the writing is just fantastical and i, politely, wish to drown in it. did i understand it all? no. did it make me Feel Something? YES.
the story was so bizarre but so Beautiful and so wonderfully mad. i did not expect the ending but all’s well that ends well, even in wonderland.
anyway i love them but not quite as much as they love each other.
also this was written by julie’s niece/dami’s cousin and i feel that important to note 🤞
April 28, 2024
I do love a dark, twisted, wicked tale where everyone is mad and insane and corrupted. I enjoyed the push and pull of Icca and Caro and Hattie's personalities. But I have to be honest: the writing style, while atmospheric and enticing, confused me. I simply went along for and with the vibes. I could tell you what the story was, but for the life of me, I cannot pinpoint a plot. Would still recommend though because who doesn't love toxic sapphics who go from lovers to enemies who try to kill each other but couldn't find it in themselves to kill the other?
May 31, 2024
I was super excited for this one since Alice in Wonderland is one of my all-time favorites and I adore Mikuta’s Gearbreakers. But something didn’t quite click for me. I felt lost half the time – it was a bit messy. That said, I really loved the writing. It was confusing, sure, but also had this poetic, fairytale vibe that I enjoyed. Plus, the narration was fantastic. It felt like someone was personally telling me a story, which was a nice touch. So, it’s a mixed bag for me.
February 25, 2024
beautiful, deadly, gorgeous, singular. Zoe Hana Mikuta’s writing really knocks the breath of of you in the best way.
January 9, 2025
frothing at the mouth over this one
November 17, 2023
"It is so strange, to be awake."
I love when a book promises to be utterly, madly UNHINGED ... then delivers. Say what you will about the gory, surreal, fever-dream hellscape that Zoe Hana Mikuta has wrangled up. This is precisely what an Alice in Wonderland retelling should look like (when you add heaping spoonfuls of terrible girls in love + fcked-up Saints + Korean inspo + whatever bloody, beautiful witchcraft is oozing through these pages.)
I think my brain unravelled slightly, too.
I'm interested to hear how readers respond to this one, because it's a RIDE. Sometimes, I admit, it's a little much even for me; not because of the gore or weirdness, but because it turns itself into loops that felt either repetitive or too confusing to follow. For huge swathes of the story, I was either mildly bored or had no idea wtf was happening. But. But, but, but, I also couldn't stop thinking about it. Mikuta's Wonderland dug its nasty little talons beneath my skin, and I'll be mentally living there for a long, long time. My favourite parts were those existentially introspective moments that asked big questions, like what does it mean to MEAN something, to yourself, to others? To be anything at all? Is it possible to ever be separate, or all we all a little tangled together? A little hateful? A little mad?
Ambitious. Brutal. Weird.
Hell yeah.
I love when a book promises to be utterly, madly UNHINGED ... then delivers. Say what you will about the gory, surreal, fever-dream hellscape that Zoe Hana Mikuta has wrangled up. This is precisely what an Alice in Wonderland retelling should look like (when you add heaping spoonfuls of terrible girls in love + fcked-up Saints + Korean inspo + whatever bloody, beautiful witchcraft is oozing through these pages.)
I think my brain unravelled slightly, too.
I'm interested to hear how readers respond to this one, because it's a RIDE. Sometimes, I admit, it's a little much even for me; not because of the gore or weirdness, but because it turns itself into loops that felt either repetitive or too confusing to follow. For huge swathes of the story, I was either mildly bored or had no idea wtf was happening. But. But, but, but, I also couldn't stop thinking about it. Mikuta's Wonderland dug its nasty little talons beneath my skin, and I'll be mentally living there for a long, long time. My favourite parts were those existentially introspective moments that asked big questions, like what does it mean to MEAN something, to yourself, to others? To be anything at all? Is it possible to ever be separate, or all we all a little tangled together? A little hateful? A little mad?
Ambitious. Brutal. Weird.
Hell yeah.
March 31, 2025
The beginning of this book was truly confusing. Can if you don't like it within the first 50 pages, the book's not for you, it does get less confusing but not by much.
This book had such an interesting story that I did a unique setting that I really enjoyed. However, it was severely let down by the confusing narrative, the author tried to do an unreliable narrator at points but it just served as confusing.
There were so many interesting concepts that weren't fully fleshed out, to a certain extent it was fine to just fill in the blanks. But then it felt like I was almost writing the world myself. What was divinity? What were the gods? Why did they feel pain? What was the book?
I did like the depiction of love and obsession in it though. And the characters were quite fun and had a personality. However, they didn't really change and it was quite obvious since the beginning that they still 'loved' each other.
This book had such an interesting story that I did a unique setting that I really enjoyed. However, it was severely let down by the confusing narrative, the author tried to do an unreliable narrator at points but it just served as confusing.
There were so many interesting concepts that weren't fully fleshed out, to a certain extent it was fine to just fill in the blanks. But then it felt like I was almost writing the world myself. What was divinity? What were the gods? Why did they feel pain? What was the book?
I did like the depiction of love and obsession in it though. And the characters were quite fun and had a personality. However, they didn't really change and it was quite obvious since the beginning that they still 'loved' each other.
Want to read
February 18, 2024pre-release, 180224
“for fans of chloe gong and judy I. lin” (two of my new fav writers), sapphic, korean-inspired young adult fantasy with crows on its beautiful cover
*violently pulls out some banknotes*
take my money, please do.
“for fans of chloe gong and judy I. lin” (two of my new fav writers), sapphic, korean-inspired young adult fantasy with crows on its beautiful cover
*violently pulls out some banknotes*
take my money, please do.
February 13, 2024
oh ya fantasy is so back
February 17, 2025
3/5
If Alice in Wonderland met Borderlands?
There's a lot going on here, but in such a confusing and bizarre way that I can't determine if I love it or hate it or even have feelings or thoughts.
This would make the wildest, most amazing, insanely beautiful and bloody TV show or movie. I would love to see it. Reading it... not so much. There's points where I can so vividly imagine what's happening but the next sentence or paragraph whisks it away completely and my brain is empty.
There's blood, carnage, love, anger, and just utter confusion and chaos. It's nothing like I expected but that's okay. I think? Honestly, I'm so lost. I need to read this slowly and probably two more times and I need to drag someone through the pages too because what's even happening?
Do I recommend it? Yes? I don't know. I would say it's very bizarre and it's written in a confusing way that might give you a headache, but it's wild and vivid and it's something.
Happy to have found this at my local library! I'm loving all the Korean authors and stories. Check out your local library and see if you can make sense of this carnage!
If Alice in Wonderland met Borderlands?
There's a lot going on here, but in such a confusing and bizarre way that I can't determine if I love it or hate it or even have feelings or thoughts.
This would make the wildest, most amazing, insanely beautiful and bloody TV show or movie. I would love to see it. Reading it... not so much. There's points where I can so vividly imagine what's happening but the next sentence or paragraph whisks it away completely and my brain is empty.
There's blood, carnage, love, anger, and just utter confusion and chaos. It's nothing like I expected but that's okay. I think? Honestly, I'm so lost. I need to read this slowly and probably two more times and I need to drag someone through the pages too because what's even happening?
Do I recommend it? Yes? I don't know. I would say it's very bizarre and it's written in a confusing way that might give you a headache, but it's wild and vivid and it's something.
Happy to have found this at my local library! I'm loving all the Korean authors and stories. Check out your local library and see if you can make sense of this carnage!
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