Project Athena | Reviews

Dreams of Wonderland (Carmi)

Author: Ari-Valeria

Reviewer: Read-aholic2006

Genre: Fantasy

The story follows Alyssa Lydelton, who keeps having dreams about Wonderland. One day, she sees a talking white rabbit that speaks in riddles. She tries to take a picture of it, but accidentally falls down a rabbit hole with one of her friends and embarks on an unexpected adventure.

The story rapidly gains momentum, with Alyssa's encounter with the rabbit occurring as early as the second chapter. The author's focus seems to be on driving the plot forward, as evidenced by the quick and easy-to-follow chapters, rather than on fleshing out the characters.

I have to admit something: I've never seen Alice in Wonderland, and I'm not a big fan of fanfiction, so I wasn't sure if this story would interest me. However, I was pleasantly surprised and found myself enjoying the first few chapters. While the story is clearly heavily influenced by the popular film, the author has managed to infuse her own original ideas into the narrative. The setting has been updated to a more contemporary era, and Alyssa doesn't venture into Wonderland alone (although I'm not sure if that also happens in the movie).

The grammatical errors in the text mostly involve the misuse or absence of commas, such as using them unnecessarily or failing to include them where necessary. Other errors include neglecting to insert hyphens in compound adjectives or apostrophes in possessive nouns or contractions.

It's recommended that the author refrains from using asterisks to describe actions and instead opts for more descriptive language. For instance, instead of writing sigh, the author should write "She let out an exasperated breath."

To make the scene more vivid and comprehensible, the author should consider adding more details to the following paragraph:

"It was dark, there was so much silence it was almost loud. 'What the hell just happened?' said Nick. 'We just jumped down a rabbit hole, that's what.' I looked down and saw a small light peeking out at the bottom."

The paragraph could be revised as follows:

As we plunged into the depths of the hole, the darkness engulfed us, and the only sound was the whooshing of air around us. The silence was so profound that it almost felt like a physical force.

"What the hell just happened?" Nick's voice echoed through the void.

"We just jumped down a rabbit hole, that's what," I responded, my own voice barely audible against the roar of the wind.

Peering downwards, my eyes strained to catch any sign of light. And then, finally, I saw it - a faint glimmer of illumination at the bottom of the seemingly endless tunnel.

To improve the readability of the story, the writer should consider using separate paragraphs for each speaker during dialogue exchanges. Also, it's recommended to write out numbers in full words instead of using digits, unless the number is particularly large.

Furthermore, the writer should strive to maintain consistency in the tense used throughout the story. While some chapters are written in the present tense, others switch to the past tense.

Overall, I would give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars. With some simple revisions, such as eliminating grammatical errors, selecting a consistent tense, and formatting dialogue properly, the story would greatly enhance its readability.

I would recommend this book to fans of whimsical fantasy and adventure genres, as well as those who enjoy spin-offs of Alice in Wonderland.