Still mulling this. Putting in my first thoughts now. My mind has been trying to process it all. 
 I have a weakness for Wonderland-inspired tales, although I often come away from them with a mixed reaction. 
 This world is crazy and dangerous and filled with sexual violence. It was a constant danger for Alice. She is a rape survivor, something alluded to in the first descriptions of Alice after her first trip to the Old City, where she went mad. 
 She meets Hatcher in the asylum, speaking to him through a mouse hole in the wall for 10 years. Then a fire provides the means for their escape, but it also frees something worse. 
 Pretty much non-stop action and danger. This is dark. However, we also get to see Alice grow and come into her own power, something she showed during the worst day of her life, something she forgot while she was mad, something she finds again. 
 There are romantic feelings, but not a Romance. Alice went into the asylum as a 16 year old, and it might be 10 years later, but she has been stuck, not yet grown up in the sense of knowing about her place in the world, with other people, what she wants. She also isn't sure if she could ever enjoy a sexual relationship. She has a lot of healing and soul-searching left. 
 The women in this book have no power, and that leaves them at the mercy of the men around them, and makes their lives hell and leaves them as victims. The players change, but except for Alice, I don't get the sense that any other woman is able to come into her own power. This is a point I will be mulling over for awhile and might come back and change. My words are still a jumbled mess with this book. 
 The supporting characters do horrible, horrible things in this mad world. The book felt a mix of horror and fantasy. We're not shown everything happening in gruesome detail, but the situations are there and I have a good imagination that raced to fill in the blanks. 
 There are monsters at the end of this book (and all through the book), but Alice isn't a child anymore. 
 The big question, will I read more? I think so. I think I will be better prepared for the world next time around, that's for sure. 
 [received a review copy]