After surviving a disastrous battle at prom, Alyssa has embraced her madness and gained perspective. She’s determined to rescue her two worlds and the people and netherlings she loves. Even if it means challenging Queen Red to a final battle of wills and wiles . . . and even if the only way to Wonderland, now that the rabbit hole is closed, is through the looking-glass world–a parallel dimension … dimension filled with mutated and violent netherling outcasts.
Read all the books in the New York Times bestselling Splintered series: Splintered (Book 1), Unhinged (Book 2), Ensnared (Book 3), and Untamed (The Companion Novel).
Get books 1 through 3 in the Splintered boxed set, available now!
Praise for Splintered:
STARRED REVIEW
“Fans of dark fantasy, as well as of Carroll’s Alice in all her revisionings (especially Tim Burton’s), will find a lot to love in this compelling and imaginative novel.”
–Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“Alyssa is one of the most unique protagonists I’ve come across in a while. Splintered is dark, twisted, entirely riveting, and a truly romantic tale.”
–USA Today
“Brilliant, because it is ambitious, inventive, and often surprising — a contemporary reworking of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’’ with a deep bow toward Tim Burton’s 2010 film version.”
–The Boston Globe
“It’s a deft, complex metamorphosis of this children’s fantasy made more enticing by competing romantic interests, a psychedelic setting, and more mad violence than its original.”
–Booklist
” Protagonist Alyssa…is an original. Howard’s visual imagination is superior. The story’s creepiness is intriguing as horror, and its hypnotic tone and setting, at the intersection of madness and creativity, should sweep readers down the rabbit hole.”
–Publishers Weekly
“While readers will delight in such recognizable scenes as Alyssa drinking from a bottle to shrink, the richly detailed scenes that stray from the original will entice the imagination. These adventures are indeed wonderful.”
–BookPage
“Attention to costume and setting render this a visually rich read…”
–Kirkus Reviews
“Wonderland is filled with much that is not as wonderful as might be expected, and yet, it is in Wonderland that Alyssa accepts her true nature. The cover with its swirling tendrils and insects surrounding Alyssa will surely attract teen readers who will not disappointed with this magical, edgy tale.”
–Reading Today Online
“Creepy, descriptive read with a generous dollop of romance.”
–School Library Journal
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Honestly I cried during this book
Morpheus and Jeb have been taken into the looking glass world. A realm where the use of netherling magic mutates inhabitants into horrific versions of themselves. It is also the only way into Wonderland now that the rabbit hole has been sealed. Alyssa must enter the looking glass world to save the boys, and put an end to Red. But will she be able to balance both her human and netherling side, or be torn apart by the battle within?
Ensnared takes up the crown of macabre that the first book did so well and brings it back to life. The looking glass world brings to life the darker side of the netherlings and shows how they can lust for bloodshed and pain. And in a cruel twist of fate, Alyssa will find that Red’s magic may be the very thing that will help her and her loved ones survive. Stepping out of the real world and into the looking glass world allows A. G. Howard to let her imagination run wild and coax to life the story I had hoped book two would be.
Now there are still some troupes hanging around. The love triangle is still weaving its way into the story and pulling Alyssa in two different directions, but it is much more balanced this time. Jeb and Morpheus aren’t solely good and evil. There is quite the blend in each boy and it makes decisions all the harder on Alyssa. I also enjoyed the new twists within Jeb’s character, despite how it takes him in a new direction.
I did find that some plot points fizzled out too soon. Alyssa would find herself being told not to do something and within pages that something occurs. Instead of drawing out the story and building up the tension, it was rushed. Granted the ending does tie the series up quite well, and the twist made my heartstrings tremble.
If you enjoy Alice in Wonderland and like reading young adult that teeters on the edge of adulthood, give the Splintered series a try.
A disappointing end to a disappointing series. Ensnared is the final book in the Splintered trilogy, and even though I know there are a few side stories I could probably buy in e-book form, I have no desire to continue any further into this world. I only finished out the series because I already had all the books, and while I can normally burn through lower-end YA novels in a flash, I struggled hard to finish these. The ending is probably the best part of the book because it does end on a much less traditional note than I was expecting, with a bizarre kind of wrap-up that I actually kind of liked. Too bad the rest of the novel was back to Splintered-level of nonsense and shoehorned worldbuilding.
This book takes us to yet another world, removing us from the initial insanity of Wonderland and the brief normalcy of the real world and now bringing us to AnyElsewhere, an in-between place where all Wonderland’s criminals go and where both of Alyssa’s boyfriends ended up in the end of Unhinged. Alyssa’s new mission is to rescue her boyfriends with the help of her father from this new world while saving Wonderland and the real world as well, all while learning to balance her netherling and human sides. There were a lot of plot points to wrap up in this final book, and unfortunately the ball was dropped on all of them.
AnyElsewhere, having just been introduced briefly in the last book, now has to be built from the ground up, a whole new world in the culmination of the trilogy. Where stakes should’ve been high, relationships should’ve been make or break, the author was more worried about establishing a new zany world where she could shove more weird stuff in. And there’s nothing too original about it either, which is even more frustrating. It’s a world with more deadly creatures, a new queen of madness, and another game to become ruler. It’s literally the exact iteration of the first book with a new name. And there’s another two villains: Queen Red and the Queen of Hearts, who are suddenly two different characters despite two books telling us otherwise, with almost identical mad, homicidal personalities. Like Unhinged, what was the point of this? Why can’t we just focus on building up existing relationships and closing out abandoned plot points instead of introducing a million new elements?
What was the point of this? could also be applied to another whole new facet of the universe: Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland) has cultivated his own descendants into AnyElsewhere fighting knights destined to guard the border between the realms. This is a huge thing to throw in your final book, especially when it pertains to a minor character who gets ricocheted to main character status. It seems like the author can’t let Alyssa be alone for five minutes; now that Jeb and Morpheus are gone, she relies on this character to fill the void of Alyssa’s otherwise empty personality. Another disastrous character choice is giving Jeb a power boost. No longer is he the helpless human of books past, but now has his own unneeded edginess to rival Morpheus, his own abilities that again make very little sense and are thrown into the narrative. There’s just too much going on, too much being introduced, all in what’s supposed to be the culmination of plot points from other novels. Throw in one or two minor wrenches into the equation, but it really feels like these books are so disconnected from one another that they could almost be standalone. Giving Alyssa a new sidekick every book, changing around the personalities of her boyfriends, random villain pop-ups, and new worlds, just write three unrelated books at that point.
The main reason I finished the books instead of donating them and washing my hands of the whole thing is that I was interested in knowing who Alyssa ended up with. Both options seemed less than savory: Jeb, milquetoast, constant overwrought angst, wants to marry a sixteen-year-old, has a nickname for her that’s an immediate turn-off, or Morpheus, manipulative, secret-keeper, absolutely obsessed, but at least slightly more fun. And he has a neat character design and can turn into a moth. I’ll admit I had a preference, even though I can’t say I liked him. Instead, what was probably the only interesting thing about this novel was that it, SPOILERS! ended with what probably could’ve been called a functional polyamorous relationship if we were having those conversations back in 2015. Alyssa lives her life out with both of them, swapping back in forth in an arrangement both boys are happy with. Morpheus and Jeb end up forming a kind of truce in this novel as well, gone are the constant fist-fighting and possessiveness of over who “gets” Alyssa, between the two of them, culminating in a weird friendship I actually would’ve liked to see more of. The ending was bizarrely decent; far more mature than the rest of the novel and the relationships that built up to it, both boys seemingly growing into men in mere pages, able to talk about their problems, love, and differences with each other. If Alyssa’s relationships had been like this for the past three books I probably would’ve had a much better time reading them. The potential was right there, and squandered in favor of petty squabbling and unending relationship drama that did nothing to further any character development or endear me to anyone.
With the minor improvements that Unhinged made, I really hoped that the author’s style and writing would continue to improve with each book and lead to a four-star or at least steady three-star ending, but Ensnared just went right back to its nonsensical roots. I have other retellings of Alice in Wonderland on my TBR list: The Looking Glass Wars, A Blade So Black, other standalones. I’ll be looking for heroines who can stand alone, convincing love interests, and worldbuilding that doesn’t fall apart as easy as a house of cards. I’m praying that they won’t be as trite as this series, or at least have some kind of meaningful plot that I can follow. This one just really didn’t work for me.
review blog
LOVE this spin on Alice in Wonderland! Awesome and original.
‘Ensnared’ is a beautifully mad and madly beautiful conclusion to the Splintered trilogy. Taking place first in the human realm then AnyElsewhere then Wonderland, it covers all the strange and gorgeously macabre characters we’ve come to know and love.
The whole trilogy is a wonder to read, dark and whimsical at the same time, and it is a fanciful retelling of an old classic. A.G. Howard did an amazing job moulding each character so that we could understand their positions with each other and sympathize when needed.
I would recommend this trilogy to any fantasy lovers who have a hidden dark side. Please read these amazing books!