Storyland

Storyland

by Dawn Napier

Storyland is a unique vision of the urban apocalypse novel. Creatures of fantasy and nightmare have returned to the real world, and human beings are now an endangered species. Fairytale monsters have come to life, and the lessons they teach are grim.
Out of the ashes of civilization's ruin rises Alicia, a gritty young girl born and raised in this terrifying new world. With a pistol in one hand and her trusty machete in the other, Alicia forges through nightmare after nightmare in search of a safe haven and trustworthy friends.
It is a dark realization, but she learns in her travels that some of the monsters wear human faces.

***1/2

3.5 Stars

I normally don't give 1/2 stars, but I can't seem to decide if I want to rate it 3 stars or 4 and when that happens I go for the 1/2 to ease my mind.

This is a very unique book. It brings out the grim side of all those fairy tales you are familiar with and has a different spin on the end of the world as well. It was a refreshing read, as there was no fairy tale creatures that sparkled.

The first half of the book is pretty much a bunch of short stories about different creatures or humans that are just trying to survive the new world, though it is mostly just the humans trying to survive. You are introduced to a slew of different creatures and I found it fun trying to figure out what some of them were, and honestly I'm still planning on looking up certain ones that still have me stumped. Some of the story's will defiantly sound familiar.

The second half is dedicated to Alicia as she tries to live her life in this very dangerous world. A lot of the things that happen in the first half will start connecting in the second, whether it is just a mention of someone or they take a bigger part. I would like to point out that this book is not for the faint of heart, and defiantly not for young kids. There are things that will happen to Alicia that will make your skin crawl.

One thing I really didn't like was how the first half of the book was presented. Like I said earlier it is written as a bunch of short little stories that do connect together in the second half, but the dates were very hard to follow. It would jump from being a few years into the Returning to only being a few months in the next chapter. In my opinion I don't think it would have made much of a difference to the story to have it just go in order. Because of this I kinda stopped paying attention to the dates, and really I don't think it makes much of a difference but I did find it frustrating.

I also felt that the ending was rushed a little bit. Everything came together nicely, but I felt that there really wasn't much closer with Alicia. This could be because there is going to be a second book. I didn't feel like I was left hanging with anything, mainly because there wasn't a real goal to Alicia's story other then to live to the next day, but I felt there could have been a little something more.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, I found it to be a quick and easy read, and it was defiantly interesting.