nerd teacher [books] reviewed Alice in Deadland by Mainak Dhar (Alice in Deadland #1)
A lot of typos makes this hard to read, especially if you're dyslexic.
3 stars
I can't really rate this book higher than a solid 3 because of the fact that, while it was mostly an easy read, there were significant portions that were far too distracting to read them without re-reading them to realise what was wrong (awkward phrasing and incorrect words as the result of typos). This book needs an editor so that it can really shine; it's difficult to read something where no one has fixed issues such as 'than' for 'then' or 'that', 'were' for 'where', 'though' for 'through', 'you' for 'your' and so on. Particularly for people who may have reading disabilities (I do), this could cause an issue.
Otherwise: The story itself is fairly interesting. I quite like the dystopian future it was set in where the zombie-like apocalypse (known as Biters) was actually a thing manufactured by the government to induce population control; it became something they couldn't …
I can't really rate this book higher than a solid 3 because of the fact that, while it was mostly an easy read, there were significant portions that were far too distracting to read them without re-reading them to realise what was wrong (awkward phrasing and incorrect words as the result of typos). This book needs an editor so that it can really shine; it's difficult to read something where no one has fixed issues such as 'than' for 'then' or 'that', 'were' for 'where', 'though' for 'through', 'you' for 'your' and so on. Particularly for people who may have reading disabilities (I do), this could cause an issue.
Otherwise: The story itself is fairly interesting. I quite like the dystopian future it was set in where the zombie-like apocalypse (known as Biters) was actually a thing manufactured by the government to induce population control; it became something they couldn't control because they didn't know how the virus/disease/thing would work. This is something that is quite believable of our governments, particularly as the vast majority seem to be run by greedy and incompetent fools who have no regard for life. That part makes the book incredibly believable. It also is quite believable that any government would send their (intentionally made-ignorant) militaries to fight against anyone who disagreed with them and became a symbol of revolution, regardless of how old they were.
The weird part for me was that the story, though based in India, focused entirely on a blonde girl (presumably because of the fact it used Alice in Wonderland as an inspiration). But at least her characterisation mixed her into the local culture fairly well, which is a good thing. Though many characters were quite important (Dr Protima, Amit Dewan, Satish, Arjun...), the story was entirely Alice's. This sometimes made it feel a little lacking in personality, as she had no local knowledge. (It also was weird having little local knowledge in the book, other than a handful of scattered 'this place used to be a thing'.)
