Alice I Have Been: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin

This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

This fictional life story of Alice Liddell, who inspired Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland, was a glimpse of the "could be". The book was obviously well researched and thought out and begins with Alice as an old lady, similar to the story of "Hook" with Wendy Moira Angela Darling, but there is where any similarities ended. Like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, my expectations of this work tumbled as well.
My preconceived expectations of light fiction did not allow me to enjoy this as well as I could have, mostly because of the rigid pseudo-factual story line. Beyond my preconceptions, "Alice I Have Been" eventually became an engrossing look at the life of Alice Liddell, the 'real' Alice in Wonderland. I felt a sadness for Alice, trapped in a house with a cold and aloof mother, an emotionally withdrawn father and a manipulative older sister. Alice didn't fit in and knew that she saw the world from a different perspective from those around her. Indeed there was a sadness that pervaded the entire story and unlike most fairy tales, the "lived happily ever after" didn't quite show up.

I will let the book spell out my final thoughts in a section of the story where Alice had fallen asleep during a train ride and was awakened while fighting to stay in her dream.

"Meanwhile, time did not stand still for any of them; the train pulled into the station where other people were waiting, too; where other people were watching. As with a jolt, a clang, a final high, lonesome whistle that pierced the air, sending shivers down everyone's spines, the train reached the end of its journey."

And lastly:

"I shut the book, took it upstairs to my bedroom, and put it in a drawer. I did not open it again for a very long time." (***1/2)