Heartless by Marissa Meyer is a prequel of sorts to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. It tells the story of Catherine, a sweet girl who dreams lemon trees into existence in her bedroom and whose only desire in life is to open a bakery with her best friend. However, Catherine is a lady, the daughter of the Marquess of Rock Turtle Cove, and the favorite of the bachelor King of Hearts. As such, she is expected to be a dutiful high born daughter and give up her bakery dream, wed the king she does not love, and become the Queen of Hearts. 
 And to mess things up even more for Catherine, a new Court Joker arrives on the very evening the King is set to propose, and he has the dark good looks and yellow eyes that have been haunting Catherine's dreams. 
 I LOVED Heartless. Meyer did a really good job, I think, of capturing the whimsy of the source novel, without just copying it. I suppose it'll help to be familiar with Carroll's version before reading this one, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. Even if you don't quite get all of the references, that'll only add to the nonsensical feel that Wonderland is supposed to have anyway. Win/win, I'd say. 
 Now let's talk characters: 
 I did like Catherine. I couldn't help but compare her to the Lunar Chronicles' Queen Levana in my head, but Catherine is infinitely more likeable. Levana's fate is kind of sad at first, but was largely the result of her own (malicious tbh) choices. Catherine was a genuinely good person who simply wasn't very brave or strong for most of the book. (Beware there's both Fairest spoilers & Heartless spoilers under this cut: (view spoiler)[And her fate wasn't caused by malicious choices, but rather a misguided decision that was based on love. She kinda knew everything would go to hell if she went back to Hearts after going through the maze, but she couldn't very well leave her best friend behind to die. Also, Catherine and Jest had an ACTUAL relationship based on ACTUAL love, whereas Levana had a pretty warped relationship with a man who she claims to love but ended up killing. SO.) (hide spoiler)] 
 Jest was the best part of course. I'm such a sucker for mysterious, charming, and sort of weird romantic leads. Meyer perfectly crafted this man with whom every reader (or just me?) would fall in love with so as to make the (view spoiler)[the inevitable ending that much more heartbreaking, so that we could better understand Catherine's transformation. (hide spoiler)] 
 This review is a mess, but I'm going to end it by saying that books like this one (and Fairest and the TV show "Once Upon a Time" and all the rest that are similar) are SO important. I want to know why these "evil" characters are the way they are. There's always a reason. I can sort of put up with one-dimensional heroes, but an evil character needs a bit more explaining for me to buy it. 
 Anyway, read the book.