A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinneyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
"We can change the whole world
Gonna take it over, gonna start it over
Don't you know what we could be?
A new beginning, fight until we're winning
Tell me that you're in it
Don't you wanna be a superhero?"
-Simon Curtis
"Heroes always get remembered, but you know legends never die!"
-Panic! at the Disco, "The Emperor's New Clothes"
The last ARC I traded for online in August, finally reviewing now, and I'm gonna call this one a case of saving the best for last.
Sorry, Splintered, but I think I have a new favorite Alice in Wonderland retelling. As I expected based on the stellar sneak peek we got in, I think, Entertainment Weekly a few months back alongside the cover reveal - my God, that is a beautiful cover! But yeah, that sneak peek was just a small taste of L.L. McKinney's gift for action, though there's a lot more to this book than that.
McKinney lines her debut with - to quote Margaret Stohl's blurb for Jason Reynolds' Miles Morales: Spider-Man - "equal parts hero and heart." I remember when McKinney was a Pitch Wars mentor a few years back, I was considering submitting to her because of how much of a Spider-Fan she was, and it really shows in this book. Not only in Alice's secret life as a Buffy-grade ass-kicker in Wonderland and the real world both, but also in her mom's anxieties about Alice constantly being late for curfew and incommunicado. Like Aunt May - I'm especially thinking of Sally Field's and Marisa Tomei's portrayals of Aunt May here - but of course with the extra worry that perhaps Alice will become another police brutality statistic. Tellingly, the book repeatedly references such an in-universe extrajudicial shooting, and it's indicated that Nightmare monsters from Wonderland are helping influence the increased prevalence of this and other racist acts.
Alice feels these fears pretty acutely too, but she's got a ton on her plate to worry about as one of the select few Dreamwalkers tasked with helping keep the human world safe from Wonderland's threats. Luckily, she really isn't the only one - among others, we have the reimagined Tweedles, a pair of Russian twins named Dimitri and Demarcus Tweedlanov, who eerily resemble Spike. The book does have quite a few close analogues to certain Buffy-equivalent characters - for instance, Chess and Court read to me, respectively, like if Willow were a soft boy and if Xander were a girl who needed a ton of attention; also, there's Addison Hatta (whose last name will only ever make me think of how Marissa Meyer used the same phonetic-in-an-English-accent spelling of "Hatter" in Heartless), who plays like Angel but, mercifully, without much of an Angelus side. (Though who knows? Angelus didn't really come out of the woodwork until the second season of Buffy - McKinney could have similar plans for her series here!)
I won't go too deep into the plot because I want everyone to be as well-surprised as I was, but let's just say McKinney's got the twist game down pretty well. I mean, there were a lot of plot developments I frankly couldn't see coming. And let me tell you, there's no way this is a standalone, not with that practically Aveyardian cliffhanger that's probably come closer than any other to reaching the infuriation levels provoked by Glass Sword 2.5-plus years ago.
Bottom line, if you love your books full of unabashed geek flag flying (I may be wrong, but I think McKinney based some of Alice's cosplaying history on her own), propulsive mile-a-minute thrills, and authentic and inclusive casts of characters, A Blade So Black better be on your fall reading list.
P.S. I'm pretty sure I know exactly which book Alice says, on page 179, she can't get more than one chapter into no matter how often she tries.
P.P.S. Alice dual-wields on the cover. We all know what that means! :D
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