Catherine would rather be covered in flour from baking in the kitchen than married off to some noble. But as the daughter of a prominent Marchioness and Marquess, an advantageous marriage is all Catherine is destined for. When the King of Hearts sets his sights on courting Catherine, she is obligated to agree, but she desperately schemes to find a way out of the arrangement and into her own bakery. However, more time with the king exposes Catherine to a mysterious new court joker who grows more alluring with each meeting. Catherine’s heart is close to breaking, and she just might crack under the pressure as she navigates a persistent king and a kingdom under threat from a ferocious Jabberwock.
I’m not particularly a fan of prequels, or even books like Heartless that give existing characters new backstories. I didn’t seek out Heartless because I’m a Carroll fan, nor was I looking for an opportunity to indulge in the world of Wonderland. Truly, I wanted to see how a forbidden love between a lady and the court jester would play out, and it just so happened to be in Carroll’s world. I unwittingly fell into some published Alice in Wonderland fanfiction, so the story was a little different from what I expected, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless.
Meyer captures the wonderfully weird and wacky atmosphere of Alice in Wonderland to tell Catherine’s story. The world is bursting with the same insane shenanigans and whimsy, and that unnerving darkness also lingers along the edges. Catherine gives us a different perspective, though, by being a resident of the world, while Alice was an outsider who fell into it. It’s interesting to watch a grounded Catherine take all the chaos in stride. It’s never shocking or strange enough to put her off guard; this is her home after all, so she doesn’t bat an eye at the antics from the other characters, which was a fun, new way to engage with Carroll’s world.
The awkwardness between Catherine and the King of Hearts is a living, breathing thing that takes up space as if it were another character in the story. The interactions between them are truly painful. I wanted to crawl out of my skin every time the king wrote terrible poetry or gave out cringey compliments. The man truly has a heart of gold, but his cluelessness and spineless demeanor made it feel like a dead fish was courting Catherine. Meyer did such a great job capturing Catherine’s discomfort that it heightened the tension between her and the court joker, too. My heart broke each time Catherine was forced to suffer through the king’s flirting, only to look across the room to catch the joker’s eyes, literally seeing another life, a better one, but being incapable of grasping it. The romance between Catherine and the joker is so sweet, and you guessed it, playful. I love that Catherine doesn’t want to give up her desire to own a bakery just because she falls in love, but instead sees the joker as a part of that dream.
The good, heartfelt moments are few and far between in Catherine’s story, but what can you expect from a book called Heartless? Marissa Meyer captures Wonderland’s nonsensical nature and expands the lore in a fun but heartbreaking way, so we can understand the Queen of Hearts just a little bit better.
