Alice I Have Been

by Melanie Benjamin | Audiobooks |
ISBN: 9780307713445 Global Overview for this book
Registered by indygo88 of Lafayette, Indiana USA on 3/18/2022
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Friday, March 18, 2022
"But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?

Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.

That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.

For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey."

Acquired via PaperBackSwap. (Unabridged on 10 CDs; read by Samantha Eggar)

Journal Entry 2 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Thursday, December 22, 2022
Alice Liddell grew up in 19th century Oxford, England. One of several children, her family was well-established and while growing up, she and her sisters spent some time under the supervision of Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll). On one such occasion on a boating trip, Dodgson was inspired by young Alice to create the story of a young girl and her fantasy adventures, which eventually became known worldwide as Alice in Wonderland. As Alice grew, her notoriety grew as well, and she struggled to find love and worth separate from that which outsiders associated her with.

I'll be the first to admit that I've never actually read any of Lewis Carroll's books and I'm only very vaguely familiar with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. However, having a limited knowledge of Alice and her adventures really won't hinder the reader's understanding of this historical fiction novel. In fact, readers that hold Alice near and dear to their heart may be disturbed by this book, as the story of Alice and Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is a somewhat controversial one, and it may ruin the "magic" for some readers. I won't elaborate here or give away any spoilers, though you can find out more by reading other reviews or simply doing a Google search.

I've read a couple other novels by Melanie Benjamin, and I feel she's a fairly decent writer of biographical fiction. The idea of this novel intrigued me. However, in the long run I was disappointed, not because of the subject matter, but because I just felt this novel dragged on and not a whole lot really happened. I appreciated learning a little background about the inspiration behind Lewis Carroll's novel and I thought it was written well for the most part, but the story never really grabbed me and I was ready to move on about halfway through, though I did persevere to the end. This was Benjamin's first novel and I remember a bit of chatter about it when it came out, but I don't feel it's her best.

Journal Entry 3 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Released 3 mos ago (12/26/2023 UTC) at Lafayette, Indiana USA

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