Very disappointed. I thought Stage's first book, "Baby Teeth" was great, but this one was just...weird. The plot was completely flat, boring, and repetitive. Many times I found myself asking what exactly was going on (but not in the good, suspenseful way, but in the "what is the author actually trying to have happen here" kind of way). I would say don't believe the hype of this being like "if Shirley Jackson wrote 'The Shining'."

Wonderland is as far from Baby Teeth as possible. For the first 90% of the book, Zoje Stage had my full attention and a 4-star rating. Unfortunately, the resolution of the story didn’t really work for me. When you combine that with some of the book’s repetition, it sadly dropped my enjoyment down to the 3-star level.

My rating isn’t meant to convey that this book isn’t worth your time. It’s ambitious, manages to take a new approach to the gothic tale of an old house in the woods, and it contains a lot of symbolism. Wonderland is also notable for its feminist themes, although it takes quite a while for the majority of them to show up.

Despite this one not living fully up to my high hopes, I would definitely read future books written by Stage.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

I absolutely LOVED "Baby Teeth". I couldn't wait to read this follow up. Then I started it...and I was bored...and kept going...and was bored some more...and didn't like the characters...then I started looking at reviews, and they were "Loved it/hated it", and I had a feeling I was falling into the latter category. So I skipped towards the end and saw what the "twist" was, and my eyes widened in shock...but not in a good way. I read some of it...realized I would have been very angry if I had sat through this dull book to get to THAT reveal...and decided this was immediately going into the DNF pile.

I'm hoping this is a sophomore slump, and the next book will be much better. Until then, I'll stick to my fond memories of "Baby Teeth".

First line: Orla tried not to think of it as an amputation, but that’s how it felt.

Summary: Orla and Shaw have decided to move their family from New York City for the north country of New York. Orla has spent years as a ballerina but now it is time to let Shaw develop his talent as a painter. What better place than a lone house in the country? On their first night there things begin happening with the weather. Orla is worried that something will happen. As a mother what can she do? She must protect her children at all costs.

My Thoughts: As soon as I saw that Zoje Stage was writing a new book I was beyond excited! I could not wait to get my hands on it. I was constantly watching Netgalley and our library catalog to request a copy. And when I did I was stoked! However, I was really disappointed.

I felt like the book was just constantly on repeat. The same things kept happening over and over again. Snow, scared, we should leave. Snow, scared, we should leave. I took a break about half way through to see if a little time would help. When I picked it back up it was the same. I skimmed the last 30% to see if the reveal at the end was shocking enough to revitalize the story. It was a letdown unfortunately.

I like slow burns in books but this could have been a shorter story and I may have enjoyed it more but it took a lot to get through everything. I am so disappointed I didn’t like it. Some parts were great and my heart was racing. I had to look up several of the natural phenomenon that were mentioned and they sounded really cool. I did learn stuff. I will try Stage’s next book in the hopes that it will be as compelling as the terrifying story in Baby Teeth.

FYI: A few graphic moments.

At first this seemed like an odd episode of House Hunters. Retired ballerina and wanna be painter buy a picturesque property in the Adirondacks. Then the creep factor started setting in. Snow, lots and lots of it, creepy trees and possible hallucinations. Definitely a book to read in winter by the fireside! Thank you so much for letting me read it!

In Zoje Stage's upcoming novel "Wonderland", the reader is invited to an eerie and terrifying winter wonderland, that will have you at the edge of your seat.

Orla was, until recently, a successful ballet dancer in New York City. Her and her artistic husband have two children together, Eleanor Queen and Tycho. Tired of being cramped into a one bedroom apartment, her husband makes the suggestion to move near his childhood home, so he can take up painting. He feels as if it is his time to shine as a painter, and Orla should retire from her dancing days.

They purchase a old house in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors near them. Orla is skeptical, but she is willing to try for her husband's sake. But, soon she realizes something is haunting them. There is an unknown entity trying to make contact with her family. The entity is not inside the house itself, but uses the land and weather to communicate with her family. And Orla is convinced it isn't friendly.

Personally, I find this book claustrophobic, scary and frustrating. But all in a good way. The whole setting of Wonderland terrifies me. I am a city girl at heart, and imagining being cut off from the world in an old house, surrounded by nothing but woods is not my cup of tea. While reading, I felt as if I was a part of the story. I could imagine the terror that Orla felt as her family went through this nightmare. The vibe this book puts off is perfect. Fearing for your children's life is something I never want to live through.

The only negative part is that Orla was getting a bit annoying at some points. I'm not really sure why, but her babbling on about her dancing times was getting tedious.

4 out of 5 stars!

Thanks to Netgalley and Mulholland Books for this arc.

What started off as a promising atmospheric horror story unfortunately fell completely flat for me less than halfway in,

Wonderland follows a family as they decide to leave their city lifestyle behind to start a new chapter amongst the wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains in New York state. From the beginning I was actually pretty hooked, I enjoyed the character development of the family as they left behind a life in bustling NYC to start anew in a place where their closest neighbor was miles away.

"If Shirley Jackson wrote The Shining" ... In the first third of the book, I was truly appreciating this comparison. There was this sense of not being quite sure if the narrator was reliable, which I truly enjoyed. Then the frightening and unexplainable natural occurrences began and I appreciated how level headed and almost clinical the narrator treated things (even going so far as to have their water tested to see if these happenings were only psychological.) There were also a few truly unique and disturbing scenes in this book, but I found a lot of the descriptions to be either slightly lacking, or too in depth to the point of repetitiveness.

This is now the second book by Zoje Stage that I have read, and while I really do feel like she starts off as a strong writer, this is now the second book of hers that just ended up being repetitive and boring to me by the end.


***Thank you to Netgalley and Mulholland Books for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.***

What a stunning sophomore book! Stage masterfully takes the reader through this chilling tale, hitting you hard in the gut as the dread and tension rises ever higher. I was nauseous, fearful, and loved every minute of it.

Shaw and Orla Bennett, along with their children, leave the city for the woods in order for Shaw to pursue his art. Their new home is an adjustment for each family member, and they soon find out that the woods are adjusting to them as well.

I was invested in learning what "It" was, and why it was there, and what it wanted, but I didn't feel like I got the answers I was looking for. I was quite annoyed by the "explanations" given through Shaw and Eleanor Queen; the stuttering speeches made little sense.

I also didn't like that the daughter was literally named Eleanor Queen, and that Shaw and Orla were Mama and Papa. These are white American children from New York, why would they call their parents Mama and Papa? it just annoyed me for some reason.

Man, oh man!!! This is one crazy supernatural story!

The beginning was a bit slow and not so creepy, but it gave me The Shining mixed with Pet Sematary vibes. However, after about half-way through (when it felt like the story had already reached its climax) it just gets crazier and crazier!

I have never read anything like this before - what a powerful family story. And though many of the incidents that occur have a huge creep factor, nothing scared me more than the mother’s helplessness when it came to saving her family.

This is a story of power, nature, life, love, and loss.

Definitely read this one!

Baby Teeth is one of the first books I picked up after I joined the horror and #writingcommunity on Twitter, and I've been a big fan of Stage since. So when I saw Wonderland available on NetGalley, I immediately requested it and was thrilled to be approved. I mean, look at that cover. Striking. I couldn't wait to dive in.

After retiring from a lifelong ballet career, Orla and her family move to a remote house in the Adirondacks so her husband, Shaw, can pursue his artistic ambitions and their children, Eleanor Queen and Tycho, can experience the rustic upbringing they've never had. But the house and land are far from what they imagined, and when they discover that something is lurking in the woods, they have to confront their fears head on.

Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There is a lot going on in spite of the quiet, introspective nature of the MC: relationship issues, motherhood issues, adjusting to a new lifestyle, difficult life transitions, childhood traumas, not to mention supernatural forces, a possibly malevolent being, and a house built in an area used for tuberculosis cure cottages.

Orla is an interesting character, and in her, I saw a lot of myself: balancing being a good mother and needing to find fulfillment in something other than motherhood, supporting her husband and questioning the depth of his dedication, and perhaps most of all, wariness of nature--this one, I feel, is more prevalent as the weather is getting nicer here, and I have to face my fear of bugs in order to play with my kids outside. I live in upstate NY and I'm no stranger to the ADKs, and Stage did an excellent job creating the eerie unbalance of moving from the city to the wilderness where the closest pizza shop is half an hour away.

I also chuckled at Orla's predicament on a pandemic level, as she adjusts to only being with her family for days on end, but such is life in quarantine. You take enjoyment where you can get it lol.

Without giving too much away, this book is quiet yet powerful and deeply unnerving. The silence itself becomes a character, as does nature, the house, and your own judgment of the situation. You are forced into the story, questioning Orla's choices, but at the same time, swimming in ambiguity of whether you would act differently if put in her shoes. As a parent, we think we listen to our children, but our engagement comes from a place where we think we know better. We're adults with complete cognitive abilities and a bigger frame of reference, so of course we do, but in Wonderland, none of that matters. There are higher powers, intangible thought processes, and a Whitman-esque mindset where one person contains multitudes.

I will say that if you're expecting a high-octane, edge-of-your-seat scarefest, this might not be the book for you. Reading this felt a little like watching The VVitch or Midsommar, where everything is deeply unsettling but you can't put your finger on why--until you can. There are a lot of unexplained answers and things happen because they do and can and you might not get that hard-locked closure (a fact I loved). Dozens of tiny horrific explosions, but their disasters are emotional wreckage and reflection instead of killer carnage. I loved Stage's exploration of mental fortitude and mother/child relationships.

Overall, Wonderland is an atmospheric, artistic nightmare you won't want to miss.

Big thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I got excited when I saw the author had written a second novel. I loved Baby Teeth, it was like a hard punch in the stomach, in a good way, it knocked me over, and I couldn’t put it down. It was well written and kept me on the edge of my seat. Unfortunately this book didn’t do the same. While I still enjoyed it, I had a harder time getting into it until about halfway through. I liked the suspenseful ness of the remote winter setting and the family as a whole. With that being said, I still look forward to what the author comes up with next.

I just finished Wonderland by Zoje Stage yesterday. I absolutely adored Baby Teeth, the author’s debut. I felt it ideally combined the scary, thrilling, nerve-wracking tension that you want in a suspense, plus it was extremely well written. So I couldn’t wait to read Wonderland. I was on pins and needles as I began, not knowing what this book had in store.

Orla is a former ballerina, and her husband Shaw is an artist. They have two children, Eleanor Queen (always both names) and Tycho. The family packs up their cramped 600 square foot apartment in New York to move to upstate where they buy an old house on an enormous piece of land. Shaw loves the nature surrounding their home, Orla isn’t so sure. Eleanor Queen is creeped out but can’t explain why.

Soon, it becomes apparent that something spooky is afoot. Bizarre things happen that can’t be explained like sudden wheels of snow form in the yard (like haystacks) and snow comes flying off the trees when there is no wind. And from there an evil entity messes with this family.

I wish the book was categorized more as paranormal or even magical realism because there are elements here that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. It’s not the author or the book, it’s my preference. I love suspense and thrillers that tread into horror territory, but I’m always lost with paranormal stuff.

Here’s the official description:

The Bennett family – artist parents and two precocious children – leave their familiar urban surroundings for a new home in far upstate New York. They’re an hour from the nearest city, a mile from the nearest house, and everyone has their own room for the very first time. Shaw, the father, even gets his own painting studio, now that he and his wife Orla, a retired dancer, have agreed that it’s his turn to pursue his passion.

But none of the Bennetts expect what lies waiting in the lovely woods, where secrets run dark and deep. Orla must finally find a way to communicate with – not just resist – this unknown entity that is coming to her family, calling to them from the land, in the earth, beneath the trees … and in their minds.

If you are a person who likes paranormal horror, this is for you. Zoje is a talented writer, I will read anything she writes. She captures the atmosphere of a cold, desolate farmhouse very well and you will sympathize with Orla as she tries to figure out this new stage of her life which doesn’t include ballet.

This book comes out on June 16th, you can pre-order it here.

Ballet dancer Orla, has been the breadwinner for her family for a long time. But now it’s time for her to retire and take care of her two children, while her husband, Shaw, concentrates on his art.

They move out of New York City and move into a reclusive and dilapidated cabin in the woods.

What at first seems like a lovely serene environment, soon turns into something strange and terrifying.

Orla’s husband gets more and more withdrawn with every passing day and he seems to be fixated on an ancient tree on their property.

Then their surroundings are overtaken by unexplained, harrowing events. Orla takes it upon herself to find out what is distressing her family and why.

I found the concept of the book to be really interesting and quite unique.
It started off a bit slow but became more engaging and fast paced as it went on.
I thought it would be scarier than it was, as I didn’t find it particularly scary. It was more supernatural/ mystical than pure horror.
At the heart of it, it was also a family drama.
I would recommend this book for people who like the paranormal and supernatural genre, with undertones of nature themed horror.

Thank you to the author, Mulholland books and NetGalley, for providing me with an advance copy, for an honest review.

This is a slow burn that turns into a three alarm fire. I got caught up in the story to the point where I culd not sleep until I finished it. An awesome story!