Give me some time to figure out how to rate this one... It left my thoughts all messed up. 
 RTC. 
 *** 
 It took me so long to finally write this oh my god. But!! Here it is!! All spoilers are carefully hidden. 
 I was talking with a friend about our recent readings and I told him about Heartless. He said, "Oh, a book placed in Wonderland. What a great idea. That's so original, no one has ever done THAT before. Let's call the greatest director in film history, Tim Burton, to make a movie adaptation." Please, note the sarcasm. Nevertheless, I was pretty fucking excited about this book. I love Alice in Wonderland, no matter what anyone says. It's by far my favorite child's book. I honestly can't get enough of it. So I just said, "Fuck you." And I read it. 
 I should have listened to my friend. 
 Heartless is the first book by Marissa Meyer I've read so far. No, I haven't read The Lunar Chronicles yet. I know, I suck. But, to be honest, after reading this one, I don't know if I'll read more of her... 
 Okay, I am being unfair. Meyer is actually a great writer. Her style is amazing, I gotta give her that. And I absolutely loved what she made of Wonderland. The way she moved around this particular universe, leaving clues and hints all over the place is what made me fall in love with the story at first. Until. 
 And this is when I take a long deep breath and try to write down everything that made me roll my eyes without losing it. 
 "It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you." 
 As I said, Wonderland is amazingly well developed. The book truly makes justice to the world Lewis Carroll invented all those years back. My principal issue was with our main character, Cathering. 
 What an infurating little thing. 
 Catherine's dad is a Marquess, and so her parents have a lot of money. Also, the King is head over heels for her and wants to marry her. But Catherine doesn't want to be the Queen of Hearts. She wants to open a backery. Baking is what she really loves doing, and she is great at it. At the same time, while all of this develops, she falls for the court joker, Jest. But her parents would never allow her to marry a joker. So basically nothing goes her way and she won't stop whining about it without really doing anything to step up to her parents until it is too late. 
 I hated her. There is no nice way to say it. I just can't stop seeing her as an annoying little girl who throws a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. "MY PARENTS DON'T UNDERSTAND ME I HATE MY LIFE." She is so selfish and self centred, always blaming other people for her own mistakes and stupid actions. GROW THE FUCK UP. 
 "Perhaps we know each other in the future and you're remembering backwards." 
 And let's talk about her relationship with the joker. Jest is honestly the only character I loved. He is so funny and kind. BUT. WHY ISN'T THERE A SINGLE THING IN THIS BOOK THAT ISN'T FOLLOWED BY A BUT. Cath and Jest fall in love the moment they see each other. And that's just. Ugh. Sorry. No. I can't go with it. I find love at first sight so stupid, so hollow. I tried to just ignore it and let myself ship them but I found it so annoying. Their relationship does somehow develop into something more meaningful, but I still didn't buy it. Cath is willing to leave everything behind for Jest, even her best friend. Yes, you read right. 
 Told you. So selfish. 
 Leaving the romance aside, the rest of the plot and characters were also very faulty. There were characters that had no reason to exist, to the point where the story might have been better without them. Also, it is so easy to figure out who the 'bad guy' is. His description gives him away; ugly, kinda freaky, all dark and gloomy. It was almost as if Marissa Meyer was whispering to my ear: "He is the bad guy. Do not trust him." Disappointing. 
 There was a very sublte, almost implicit attempt at adding a bit of LGBT+ representation, but not even that made me like this book a bit more. By now you should now I get very excited over anything LGBT+ related hello? did you read my description? but this time it did not work. Wow. 
 At the beginning I really thought Meyer nailed the description and development of Wonderland, but by the time I reached the end it all just felt like a random compilation of Alice's references and famous quotes. It felt too forced. 
 I can't say I am disappointed by this book because I didn't even have high hopes when I started reading it, but I wish I would have liked it better.