I may not be the best versed at Alice and Wonderland, but you don’t have to be to be swept away by Off With Their Heads. This sapphic story screams dystopia and monster hunting. Keep reading this book review of Off With Their Heads for my full thoughts.
Summary
In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it’s been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn’t commit—and four years since they shattered one another’s hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.
Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro’s betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her vengeance: On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.
But there’s a secret about the Saints the Queen’s been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other…
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
I think this could be my first Alice and Wonderland retelling? It’s been a while since I’ve read the material, but as I was reading Off With Their Heads it began to come back. At the core of this story is friendship and love, how it can sour and the ways it can change in an instant. There are subtle references at the beginning to allow us to orient ourselves. But then Off With Their Heads takes off. The time jump between when they were in love, to the present, allows us to see the milk soured, the line between love and hate.
And while I appreciated the reimagining and the character dynamics, in the middle Off With Their Heads lulled a bit. There’s this sort of build up to revealing what happened between them and what Caro doesn’t seem to know about the Queen, but for a while until it drops, there’s a feeling of being in a holding pattern. Listening to Off With Their Heads in audiobook form helped hold the middle together with Suzie Yeung’s narration. There are also portions of the book which almost breaks the fourth wall and talks to us.
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Overall, I wanted to love Off With Their Heads. What begins as incredibly promising, loses a bit of steam in the middle. As a whole, I enjoyed the ways we can see how their relationship crumbles and falls apart. How they see each other now with the benefit of the past and these compromises they have to make. The ways tragedy and loss hardens or changes our mind out of necessity. As a retelling, I appreciate how Off With Their Heads feels like a great homage and unique product of its own. For fans of the original, or who love the idea of queer monster hunters with a history, try this one out!
Find Off With Their Heads on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.