Audiobook Review: Heartless

About The Book:

  Title: Heartless 

  Author: Marissa Meyer 
  Pub. Date: November 8th, 2016
  Publisher: Feiwel & Friends 
  Pages: 453 

  Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Retellings 

  Rate: 2.5/5 stars 

Synopsis :

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland and a favorite of the unmarried King, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, she wants to open a shop and create delectable pastries. But for her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for a woman who could be a queen.

At a royal ball where Cath is expected to receive the King’s marriage proposal, she meets handsome and mysterious Jest. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the King and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into a secret courtship.

Cath is determined to choose her own destiny. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.

Review:

If it's one thing that will make or break an audiobook for me, it's the narrator. There's been too many audiobooks that I just had to stop because the narrator's voice was so nauseating. Lucky for me, Heartless had an amazing narrator that kept me engaged throughout the entire book. Unfortunately, it just wasn't enough to make me love this. I don't know anyone who loves Alice in Wonderland as much as me, I've been a huge fan ever since I was a little girl. I also am a fan of Ms. Meyer's Lunar Chronicles series. So, I was HIGHLY anticipating the release of this last year. Heartless follows Cath, who is destined to become the Queen of Hearts.

Ok - the Queen of Hearts is SUCH an infamous villain, you can't help but be drawn into her story. She's truly iconic. She's so iconic that the majority of this book is almost unbelievable. Cath doesn't want to be married to the King, she wants to open her own bakery. This is all fine and well, but the only thing she does is complain and whine, never doing anything constructive about her situation to change it. Does this sound like the Queen of Hearts you know? It doesn't sound characteristic of the one I'm familiar of. While she develops a crush on the court jester to the King, she becomes even more idiotic. She starts blaming everyone in her life for her problems except for herself. Literally everyone. It's Hatter's fault, or her maid, her mother's, father's, the King's, and the list can go on and on. This would be fine if it wasn't the ORIGIN story to the famous Queen of Hearts. You're meaning to tell me the Queen of Hearts was so caught up over a boy she refused to function in the world of Wonderland? I just can't believe it. I of course loved the whimsy and magic of Wonderland, and seeing our favorite classic characters the Hatter, March Hare, and the Cheshire Cat. However, I don't think this did our evil Queen of Hearts justice.

So while the narrator of this audiobook definitely made this somewhat enjoyable, I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped. The whimsy of Wonderland was definitely brought to life with Heartless, which I obviously loved. I just couldn't get over how unbelievable Cath was as the Queen of Hearts. I thought her origin story would be a little bit more epic than being sad over a boy she knew for a few months at the longest. Are you a fan of Alice in Wonderland? What did you think of Heartless?

- Jocelyn