Everyone has been RAVING about this series, and I figured: I love fairy tales, I love Disney and I love Alice in Wonderland, so why not?

I wasn't as enchanted with this book as I had hoped. It was a really cool re-telling/addition to Alice in Wonderland's lore, but it just didn't hit all the right chords with me.

Let me explain:

1. This book is 500 pages long. It is WAY longer than it needed to be and droned on at times. That made this book super slow, and I am a fast paced kind of reader.
2. The Queen's executions and property stealing seemed random yet planned. I don't know why, but that part of the story kind of threw me off. It was weird. And we didn't even get to see too much of her...
3. The plot didn't grab my attention, if I'm being honest.

What I did enjoy:
1. Katz was a cool character. Alice having a love interest was new and very intriguing! I have to admit, I kind of liked it? Especially since this book didn't go full romance either. Just cute plot suggestions to add to her story.
2. Alice is a strong female lead with likes and dislikes and hobbies. I like that.
3. The story telling and writing style of Liz Braswell is wonderful. That definitely helped this story a lot.

Overall, this book makes me want to read the rest of the series, especially based on the reviews of other readers. Disney fans will enjoy it for sure!

Three out of five stars.

Oh this a wonder addition to the Alice movie. It was quite good. I loved, loved the nods to Alice through the looking glass and how the Wonderland characters had counterparts in the real world. I won't tell you how the story ends, but it's well worth a read. Katz is quite adorable.

**I received an advanced copy of this book for an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own**
The Twisted Tales books are always a hit or miss for me so I always find myself thinking if it'll be worth it to read the new ones when they come out. I do though because the concept intrigues me and I'm curious to see how the twist will turn out.
This specific Twisted Tale was unfortunately the most disappointing of the ones I have read. I feel very confused, which is fitting for an Alice in Wonderland tale, but there comes a point where it goes too far. I think this book went a bit too far in the confusion aspect.
The way some things are written just don't make sense. Or are so crazily worded that I spend a decent amount of time laughing about them. For example, on the very first page, the sentence "Her eyes snapped open, the long lashes on her lids waving like wheat with the suddenness of the motion". I'm still laughing at that sentence and I'm done with the book. I don't like the idea of my eyelashes being compared to wheat. Things are worded like that throughout the book and it really isn't necessary.
Another thing that bothered me is the lack of character development. You have all these characters, but none of them are developing. They're all just staying the same. Alice develops a bit, but she's the only one. The rest of the characters are the same throughout, which made it difficult to like them. I'm a fan of the Mad Hatter in the more recent Disney films, but I was not a fan of him here. He seemed to decline instead of developing.
The plot was there, ish, but wasn't extremely exciting. Alice had to save Wonderland. Seems to be what she does in the new movies, so it's not entirely surprising that's what she was doing.
Overall, I just had a hard time enjoying this book. There was too much going on and it was presented in a confusing way. It was okay, but not something I would pick up again.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

This book was full of surprising nonsense in the best way. I enjoyed the book from start to finish. The twists, the turns, the characters, and everyone going a bit mad just scratched the need for whimsy and fun.

I was a little nervous to read another retelling since the Beauty and the Beast one just didn’t peak my interest, but after reading this retelling, I’m all in once again.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to people who just love a great Alice in Wonderland retelling. I looked forward to the next several retellings.

As my very first Disney Twisted Tale read, I was so excited to start these darker adventures in Wonderland! Based around the premise of an older Alice returning to the whimsical world in order to save her friends, Alice's newest adventures were similar, but also very new. Though sounding similar to the Tim Burton film, it was certainly very different, which I appreciated! Alice's more adult-demeanor allowed Braswell to skillfully create comparisons to the real-world, and I had so much fun reading her fun take on old characters, as well as new!

Retelling are always interesting to me. I love seeing how different authors adapt and interpret the same story by putting their own spin on it.
In this retelling, we see Alice has grown since her last visit to Wonderland, I believe she’s 18. I enjoyed the dynamic by which she grew enough to know to question the nonsense going on around her, but kept her whimsical spirit by going along with it anyway. We get to see most of our favorites from the original story make an appearance, which I loved. All in all, a fun addition to the Twisted Tales series and I will continue on with whatever else they publish.

My favorite Alice spin-off to date. Holy shit Liz Braswell, you have outdone yourself. I found myself questioning whether the book was YA or Adult from the extensive use of foreign vocabulary and created a vocabulary sheet for myself during this read. I am in love and will be reeling from this tale for a long time.

So I never watched Alice in Wonderland alot as a kid, maybe once?, because it was terrifying to me. But I still enjoyed this retelling of the beloved Disney film.

It did take me a little bit to get into the story but I think that was due to not being familiar with alot of the characters or the Wonderland setting. Once I got use to all the madness of Wonderland the story started to flow better. The author did a great job of describing everything in such vivid detail, it felt like I was in Wonderland with Alice.

I really enjoyed the ending and how everything with Katz worked out! I thought that was a neat little twist!

Thanks to NetGalley and Disney Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC copy of Unbirthday in exchange for an honest review.

I’m giving this 3-1/2 stars.

This is a Disney twisted tale of Alice in Wonderland. What if Wonderland was in peril and Alice was very, very late? Alice is 18 now and it’s been 11 years since she left Wonderland. Gone are the days of tea parties and white rabbits and Alice is content to take photographs and spend time with her eccentric aunt Viv. Until one day when developing her photos some familiar faces from Wonderland appear and are asking for her help.

The author fully captured the nonsense and whimsy of Wonderland and I thought Alice was more likable as an adult. In this story Alice travels back forth from Wonderland and England and honestly I enjoyed the chapters in England more. If I’m being honest the story started to drag a bit in the middle and I think it was partly because the nonsense descriptions about Wonderland became a bit too much for me and the plot slowed down. The pace picked back up in the last third and I finished it in one sitting. Overall this was a fun story with likable characters but I think it would help to be a serious Alice in Wonderland fan in order to fully appreciate it.

"What if Wonderland was in peril and Alice was very, very late?"

Unbirthday by Liz Braswell is the lasted in the Twisted Tales series. I love all things Disney, and yet this was my first experience with one of the Twisted Tales! Having never read one in the series before, I was surprised at how dark the book was. I enjoyed Alice's adventures in both the real world and Wonderland and the problems she faced in each. The pacing of the book was a little slower than I expected, though Braswell's writing was beautiful and made me feel like I was in Wonderland and in peril, right alongside Alice. The ending of the story came as a surprise to me as well and was a unique twist to the original tale. I will definitely try out of some of the other titles in this series, and I would recommend Unbirthday to fans of the series or of Alice in Wonderland.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Great story that dives deeper into the world of Alice in Wonderland. You meet Alice 11 years after she first returned from Wonderland and Alice has convinced herself that her adventure in Wonderland was just a dream, or was it? Alice ends up being summoned to Wonderland to help stop the Queen of Hearts. She wrestles with helping the people of Wonderland and helping the shunned and at-risk people in her native Kexford. Alice struggles with coming to term with the similarities and differences of Wonderland and Kexford seeing the nonsense in both. Will Alice be able to save both Wonderland and Kexford? Great story that really makes me appreciate the original story of Alice in Wonderland more.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley. The opinions in this review are completely my own.

You know, I didn't really think I would like this. At first when I requested it I thought it sounded like a neat little spin-off of the Disney film, it would be a quick read, and I'd move on. And then I found out it was one in a series where many Disney movies were given the "what if" treatment, which I took as more of a marketing gimmick than anything. I then realised it was also nearly 500 pages long, which seemed like a chore. I just didn't want to dedicate the time to something I didn't think was that special anymore.

BOy was I wrong.

This was an absolute delight. YES it's nearly 500 pages, but you don't even notice because it is so delightfully filled with nonsense. I had such a fun time reading it. Somehow Liz Braswell captures the kookiness of Wonderland exactly, and you know what, when reading it and imagining the events, I pictured it animated! As in, not real people! That has never happened in my life and I am simply stunned at that revelation. I related so much with Alice, with her trying to make sense of Wonderland once again when it simple wouldn't happen and getting frustrated with the characters, probably because there was some underlying sense in what they were saying anyway. I loved that she was into photography and it provided the gateway to returning to the place of her childhood, and how she saw her old friends through the people that she knew. I actually did like Katz, although nothing much really happened with him in the actual story. I think he filled the role of decent man when Alice was surrounded by absolute goons perfectly. But mostly I loved how at home I felt, and how everything fell into place and was perfect, despite being brand new. This is the first of the Twisted Tales series I have read and may be the last, but I had an awful lot of fun doing it and would totally recommend it if you wanted something familiar and entertaining.

Thank you to Disney Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced ebook copy.

I haven't read any of the other twisted tales yet, so this was my first. But Liz Braswell did a great job at bringing Wonderland to life in an all new story.

Alice is older, but this isn't a rehash of the Tim Burton films. Instead we are reintroduced to the characters as we knew them in the beloved Disney animated film, albeit some of them a little bit older as well.

Not only do we see familiar characters, we also get introduced to new ones both in England and in Wonderland.

It's a fun tale that will have you rooting for our heroine through the whole book and falling in love with Alice all over again.

I tried, but couldn't bring myself to like this book. I love Alice in Wonderland, and I love Alice retellings, but this one just couldn't keep my interest. The story felt like it was going through the motions and pointing at key moments from the original story without committing to them.

In the end, I couldn't get through it; I quit about 20% of the way through.

Unbirthday // by Liz Braswell

It is 11 years after Alice's last adventure in Wonderland. She is now 18 years old and her days are preoccupied with photography and avoiding the men her sister tries to set her up with. Wonderland seems more like a dream from long ago than reality until its inhabitants appear mysteriously where she would least expect them. It is clear they are in danger and Alice is desperate to find her way back there to help her old... friends? She is unsure what they are to her but one thing is clear: They need her to rescue them from the evil Queen of Hearts that is a worse terror than she could have ever imagined.

This is my first experience with The Twisted Tale series and a book I was very excited about receiving. While overall, I'm happy I read it, there are several things I had issues with. Despite this though, I do still want to read the entire rest of the series because I can see the fun potential in this.

I've often wished heroines would be a little older than 15 or 16 because in a lot of stories, the young heroines seem so much more mature than real people of that age. I was excited that at least Alice was 18 and would bring us a little closer to that but instead, she seemed more childish at times than a 14-year-old. Though she did bring some sense to the extreme nonsense of Wonderland, and by extreme I mean EXTREME. I understand that things are supposed to be different in Wonderland but there was so much nonsense mixed together that it made it very difficult sometimes to follow along. I wish some of the scenes were longer and more detailed (it's difficult to give examples without spoilers) because it just seemed to jump from one thing to the next without letting us know how the characters actually accomplished certain things that were important to the story.

I know it sounds like there is too much bad but there are some parts that I really enjoyed. Mr. Katz is one of them. His personality was like a fresh breath of air and I found myself looking forward to each encounter. Another part I found very intriguing is the connection between the two worlds. I'm a fan of multiple timelines and narrators, and while this one did not have that specifically, the two different worlds very much gave me that same feeling. While I did previously mention that I would've liked more explanations of things, I did enjoy the dark elements that were present in this story. I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to horror and thriller books but this had just the right amount of creepy to make it interesting. I initially expected this to be a literal retelling of the original Alice in Wonderland but I actually liked the fact that this was 11 years later and how the passing of time has changed the characters and Wonderland itself. It also gives some parallels between Alice's real world and ours with the current discussions surrounding immigration.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. While I saw both ups and downs in this story myself, I am still excited to finally have started reading this series!

A strange alternative Alice tale! Great fun read, and definitely do not drink mercury! Great for fans of Alicevin Wonderland.

I absolutely love these Disney books they're some of my favorite books to read. I love the what if factor. And this was no different! Alice and Wonderland has been a favorite forever so giving a twist is a win from me.

DNF at 28%

I just couldn't get into this book, no matter how hard I tried. I found it to be overly fluffy and once Alice was in Wonderland there was so much detail given to almost inconsequential things. I also found the over use of parentheses to be annoying and none of it really was needed for the storyline.

I really wanted to love this book but I guess it just wasn't for me.

When we start we have Alice in the real world. She is trying to avoid her sister who keeps trying to set her up with men, but all she is interested in is taking photos. She is exploring her town trying to find things that remind her of Wonderland. Anything weird, out of place, or nonsensical. When while developing her photos one day she realizes that one of the pictures she has taken actually looks alot like the Queen of Hearts. She had thought that Wonderland was just a series of wonderful dreams she had, but now know that they must be real. She has more pictures that show Wonderland Characters, but when she gets to the picture she took of herself, She finds a girl that looks alot like her, but isn't.She is obviously injured and is holding a banner that says Happy Unbirthday.. All the pictures of the Wonderland residents show them in distress and Alice knows she has to find away back to help her friends.
I really liked the way this story was told, not really in different timelines. But one while Alice home in Kexford England, and the other in Wonderland. While in England she is trying to get back to Wonderland and avoid her sisters matchmaking attempts. In Wonderland she is trying to find away to stop the Queen of Hearts and save its people.
The Cheshire cat is one of my favorite characters, especially once we meet his match in the real world.
I loved that Alice had to balance her sense and nonsence in the different worlds in order to help everyone.
also in the end we get a glimpse of Alice in the future and that was pretty great..
If you like retellings of Alice in Wonderland definitely pick this one up.

“Unbirthday” is part of the Twisted Tales series. Each book is focused on a different Disney character and imagines what would happen if the story got a little bit, well, twisted. “Unbirthday” is based in the world of Alice and Wonderland.

Alice is all grown up now and her childhood visit to Wonderland is nothing but a vague dream. When the people and creatures start to show up in her photography, she realizes the truth and feels the call to go back. The book unfolds into a dual narrative. In Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is terrorizing citizens like never before. In the real world, the race for mayor is getting heated and the lives of immigrant children hang in the balance.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect since this was my first twisted tale. However, the more I read, the more I realized how perfectly Braswell captured the essence of Wonderland. All of the characters and creatures are perfectly nonsensical, reimagined in fascinating ways that make the retelling unique without losing the magic of the original.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is the dual narrative. The two plots mirror one another to create a strong message, a feat that would likely have been impossible if the story took place in just the mystical Wonderland.