This is really a 3.5 rounded up to 4. For me personally, it's a 3, but I think if I were closer to the target audience, it would be a 4. I can see having been way more into it as an actual young adult as opposed to an almost-30 adult (although I do still enjoy YA novels)!

There were a lot of strengths to this book; the worldbuilding is an interesting twist on Alice in Wonderland, with clear inspiration that's not taken too directly or literally. I appreciated the darkness in that it would appeal to readers who are tired of fairy tales, syrupy romances, and tales without any real stakes. The history and lore of the world was the most interesting part of the book by far, and I especially enjoyed the history of Hattie and the royal family. I also appreciated the system of magic and divinity; I found it intuitive, creative, and relatable.

My struggle with this book is that there was just too much focus on the love/hate relationship between the two main characters, and I just did not care, which was a problem since it was supposed to be the foundation of the book. Neither were particularly likeable, and there was very little to convince me that I should care about their relationship. A lot of the prose seemed to be showing rather than telling; the author tells us in extreme detail exactly what each character is thinking and feeling. While this sometimes works, and there were some particularly well-crafted pieces of writing, it ended up feeling a little shoved in your face and repetitive. I was not shown enough to convince me to root for Caro and Icca, individually or together, but I was told constantly that they were terrible, twisted, messed up people who were also obsessed with each other. That being said, this may be an issue of me not being the target audience. If I were a young, angsty, queer teen, I'd probably be much more into the young, angsty, queer teens in this book, and I perhaps wouldn't be bothered as much by being told what's happening internally rather than being shown.

Off With Their Heads is ambitious and interesting, in short. While I ended up having some frustrations, especially with the amount and type of focus put on the characters and their relationship, the worldbuilding and lore was intriguing and clearly carefully developed. It wasn't quite the book for me, but I can see how it would really hit well for some people.

Zoe Hana Mikuta writes a ballastic and bracingly creative narrative set in a world that the author has built with what seems to be creativity, energy, and care.

"It is so strange, to be awake."

I love when a book promises to be utterly, madly UNHINGED ... then delivers. Say what you will about the gory, surreal, fever-dream hellscape that Zoe Hana Mikuta has wrangled up. This is precisely what an Alice in Wonderland retelling should look like (when you add heaping spoonfuls of terrible girls in love + fcked-up Saints + Korean inspo + whatever bloody, beautiful witchcraft is oozing through these pages.)

I think my brain unravelled slightly, too.

I'm interested to hear how readers respond to this one, because it's a RIDE. Sometimes, I admit, it's a little much even for me; not because of the gore or weirdness, but because it turns itself into loops that felt either repetitive or too confusing to follow. For huge swathes of the story, I was either mildly bored or had no idea wtf was happening. But. But, but, but, I also couldn't stop thinking about it. Mikuta's Wonderland dug its nasty little talons beneath my skin, and I'll be mentally living there for a long, long time. My favourite parts were those existentially introspective moments that asked big questions, like what does it mean to MEAN something, to yourself, to others? To be anything at all? Is it possible to ever be separate, or all we all a little tangled together? A little hateful? A little mad?

Ambitious. Brutal. Weird.

Hell yeah.

Off With their Heads felt a bit like a fever dream to me. Considering the source material, maybe that's not a surprise. I was very confused with what was happening in the beginning, as the time frame shifted, but I eventually sorted it out.
The world building in this book was great. The nods to Alice in Wonderland were fun.
Off With Their Heads was about grief, trauma, friendship, and love. It was definitely unique and I think a lot of readers out there will love it.

This was delicious. The worldbuilding is magnificently dense and surreal given how comparably short the text is, and the integration of the source text is so fun. Incredibly, given how immersive and layered the world is, from the unique spirituality to the politics to the monsters, the character development work was just as good. Nested in the weird fantasy vibes is a genuinely heartbreaking story about recovering from trauma and loss as well as the struggle to know one's self. The chapters that described the fallout of Icca and Caro's relationship was somehow one of the most complexly rendered literary betrayals I've ever read? The author is just incredible at rendering emotion and character growth. My only wish is that she described in graphic detail every one of the weird saints, I kept waiting for the descriptions lol.