I finished this book this weekend and was just quietly freaking out about how much I liked it and I promise you, if you even remotely like spooky things, you are going to want to read this book.
Allow me to expound a little.
Wonderland is the horror/psychological thriller novel from local-to-me author Zoje Stage, who hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was actually introduced to Zoje’s work by my SO, Johnathan (I can’t lie, and I don’t even think I’m being biased right now, the guy has excellent taste in books. He has yet to lead me astray with a recommendation) via her debut novel, Baby Teeth. If you don’t recall, I did a full review on Baby Teeth here, but just as a super quick refresher: it disturbed the hell out of me.
Stage has a way of writing about topics that just scare the heck out of me, in a way that burrows under my skin and really makes it crawl. In the case of Baby Teeth, she did this by presenting the idea of a seemingly innocent child–your own child, your own flesh and blood–being secretly evil and turning against you in an attempt to destroy you. Y’all know how I feel about creepy children, and that novel took it to the absolute next level, especially because it was the MC’s own child.
In the case of Wonderland, she takes the idea of isolation, of escaping to a beautiful spot in the wilderness where there’s no people around, nothing but trees and snow and peace, and turns it on its head into something absolutely terrifying. She brings the surrounding forest to life in a horrific tale that had me wondering what could possibly happen next.
Wonderland follows Orla and her family as they make the move from bustling NYC to the quiet wilderness of the North Country. Orla is a newly retired ballerina and she, her husband, Shaw, and their two children, Eleanor Queen and Tycho, move to a remote house in the woods so her husband can focus on his painting and they can take on a slower pace of living. This is a dream I think many of us have nowadays, but things turn dark as something begins psychologically terrorizing the family and inexplicable events abound, causing the family to turn in on themselves and begin to fall apart as they try to find the answers and fight the forces around them that they don’t understand.
I definitely don’t want to give too much away about this one, because there are a lot of twists and turns and it’s a hell of an experience that I want you all to have for yourselves as you’re reading it. It’s really a fun and creepy reading experience to try to figure out alongside the characters what exactly is going on and why they’re thinking and feeling the things they are. Something in the woods or about the woods is definitely terrorizing them, and I loved how the author very much brings the woods to life, making the setting as much of a character as the humans in the story.
But Orla, Shaw, and even her children also end up battling with the darkness inside their own minds, which is perhaps equally as scary. I really enjoyed the fact that throughout the story not only were the characters wondering what was real and what was happening inside their minds, but I as the reader was questioning it too. There were even moments where I found myself trying to speak out loud to the characters, trying to tell them that it was in their heads or trying to convince them of what to do (as if I’d be any help in a situation this scary).
This kept me on the edge of my seat as these characters fight through hell. It’s definitely a bit of an anxiety-inducing (in a good way, because then you know the author is doing her job) read, especially when Stage leads us down a path of thinking the characters have found a way to solve things and that everything is going to be okay but I was only 50% of the way through the book and just internally screaming “WHAT MORE CAN HAPPEN? HOW MUCH MORE CAN THEY TAKE?!” (As it turns out, a lot more.)
This book was so good–and honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything less from Zoje Stage. She is really an amazing writer, not just in terms of content but in terms of the writing itself. She puts together some beautiful sentences that a nerd like me can just fall all over herself in love with:
“The shriek of the mailbox’s rusty hinges was a violation; it left a bloody color in her mind.”
“But he still ended up insectival, curled up in an urn with his Tinkertoys spine.”
And this one, which calls to mind some of my favorite Sagan quotes and fills me with existential dread:
“Looking upward was to witness the depths of infinity, impossible distances where galaxy upon galaxy spun out their mysteries. Their planet was a speck among many, their sun a pinprick of light.”
I MEAN….I’ve got literal heart eyes for this writing, y’all.
This book is an easy five out of five. It releases TOMORROW from Mulholland Books, so make sure to get on this one right away if you are a lover of the spooky because you will absolutely love it. It is so, so good.
Has anyone else read this one? Do you plan to? Let me know! <3