This is a spoiler-free review of Insanity by Cameron Jace, the first in the Insanity series.
Synopsis:
After accidentally killing everyone in her class,
Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum.
No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor
believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis
Carroll’s paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland’s real
whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice
can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated
in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double
life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum
by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she
meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes that
nonsense is an actual science.
Review:
Insanity is a re-telling of Alice in Wonderland – a modern day Alice
if you wish, but it’s a grotesque and truly insane one. It’s whimsical, yes, but it’s also bloody and gory.
Alice being an Asylum patient and the take on Wonderland is an interesting modern take on the classic, which I enjoyed a lot. However I did think that the beginning of the book was kind of boring and did not really entice me to keep reading. This is due to the strange writing style that Cameron Jace employs, which I will address first.
The word that most fits the writing style in my opinion would be risky. It’s downright mad, so to say, which is really off-putting in the beginning but then so wonderful once the plot gets going. It’s a risky move, especially for an author who mostly self-publishes, but it fits the essence of the novel extremely well. As the book obviously deal with themes of madness and insanity vs sanity, this is very clever, but as I mentioned rather off-putting and annoying in the beginning. Overall however, it’s very fitting for Alice, the protagonist.
Alice, an asylum patient, is again struggling with the question of identity in this novel. Is she the real Alice? While this is classic and a nice connection to the original stories, this also sort of annoyed me a bit. Not to an extent where I wouldn’t want to keep reading, just… Sighing whenever I read ‘She’s not the real Alice’. But her character development is nice to see. She fights to regain her memories, to find a purpose and investigate her strange past. She overcomes fears and is a very realistic character in my opinion. There is a good mixture between showing and telling, which I personally like. Alice is, in her madness, amiable and admirable.
The characters in this novel are unlike anything I’ve ever encountered, even compared to insane characters in other novels. The Wonderlanders are full of surprises, madness and character. They are strongly developed, with just as much fog to keep the reader guessing what their true motives or backgrounds are, and whether they can really be trusted. It’s engaging and intriguing to get to know all these characters, as much is withheld until the end. Overall, they’re a refreshing difference from most other characters, who (though they may seem unique) still sort of are the same across all novels.
Regarding plot, this novel is an adventure. It is so unpredictable, and it is very hard to guess what happens next and where the novel will take you. I like a novel that surprises me, leaves me in the dark and keeps me guessing, but I think this novel did this a little too much. There was little foreshadowing, which I guess goes nicely with the writing style and the whole madness of it, but it can be a little irritating as a reader who wants to actively engage with what they’re reading, create theories and fantasies and so on. This novel frustrated me. There is no satisfying denouement, and while the cliffhanger is clever, it’s also too unsatisfying as a lot of fundamental questions which you thought had been solved in the course of the plot tangle themselves again and become unsolved. This had me begging for answers, but in an unsettling way. I think Jace should have given us a little more here – it is not all that much to ask for.
Final ratings:
Cover: 3.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing style: 4.5/5
Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and I am very excited to read the next books in the series – hopefully they’ll deliver and maybe even blow me away more than this did. I’m also curious as to whether Jace’s other series employs similar writing styles. This was a very nice read, and if there’s anything you want to ask or discuss, feel free to leave me a comment down below!
All the best,
Lisa
bookshelfraid 