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Review: Heartless, by Marissa Meyer

By Cheryl Wassenaar

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Heartless, by Marissa Mayer, purports to show the origin of the Queen of Hearts. Here’s what we like and don’t like.

Ah, the retelling or origin story for a classic literary character. Even before Once Upon a Time hit TV screens, the sub-genre had blown all the way up, thanks to a little book called Wicked and the ensuing musical adaptation. One might even say it’s… Popular. Jokes aside, Heartless fits neatly into the sub-genre and Marissa Meyer’s oeuvre. (She previously wrote The Lunar Chronicles, which retold fairy tales, just with cyborgs and aliens.)

This time, though, Mayer has gone to the world of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland. Our heroine, Catherine, just wants to bake, but with the King of Hearts intending to make her his queen, she certainly has no time to fall in love with a handsome young Joker, does she? (Of course she does.)

However, while Heartless certainly manages to weave an emotional take on the birth of the Queen of Hearts, it doesn’t feel as clever as it could have been. Ultimately, we’ll give it 3.5/5 stars.

The Good

The romance between Jest, our hero, and Catherine actually feels genuine. The banter and dialogue creates a distinct sense of chemistry between the two of them. You can see that these two actually like each other and haven’t just been slapped together by the plot.

Indeed, Meyer plays well with the sense of inevitability permeating the story. Heartless‘ synopsis makes no secret of the fact that Catherine is the Queen of Hearts, lover of head-chopping even in the Disney adaptations. After a pivotal turning point, as darkness takes over, the prose captures the storm of emotions guiding her to different decisions. Even at earlier points, though, the prose can make a reader feel uneasy already.

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Speaking of the prose, it manages to capture the casual absurdity of Alice in Wonderland. No one from our world has gone down the rabbit hole just yet, and so Heartless doesn’t bother to express shock over silly lines or the idea of playing croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos. It works quite well. Of course, it doesn’t go for straight-up whimsy, but nor should it, not when we’re supposed to be seeing a dark origin story.

The Not-So-Good

Even as the tone works in Heartless‘ favor, some of the references feel too on point and too obvious. For example, a Raven accompanies Jest everywhere. Naturally, he refers to Poe’s poem for his dialogue. When he doesn’t, he speaks in rhyme nevertheless. Some of the adaptations of lines felt cleverly done, but in general, it just felt very expected. Of course a Raven makes Poe references and speaks the language of poetry. It didn’t feel fresh to me. The Raven also shows up quite often, so you can imagine that I was tired by seeing yet another “Nevermore” in the page.

Additionally, the book often feels like it’s really an origin for Wonderland as much as it is for the Queen of Hearts. This may be a feature as opposed to an inadvertent effect, because everyone – the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle – shows up. The book even manages to slide in the Rabbit getting his watch. And, of course, Catherine has some hand in most of these happenings as the heroine.

The Recommendation

To my understanding, Heartless will not have a sequel or spawn a series, and nor should it. The story feels self-contained and doesn’t drag on forever, but it does feel like it could have played with the references it makes a bit more instead of playing everything completely straight. The romance at its heart also pulls at a reader’s emotions very nicely. Pick it up for a pleasant YA-weekend read.

Next: Review: The Diabolic, S.J. Kincaid

You can find Heartless at your bookseller of choice.

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