Alison Wonderland

By: Helen Smith

Narrated by: Alison Larkin

After Alison Temple discovers that her husband is cheating on her, she does what any jilted woman would do: She spray-paints a nasty message for him on her wedding dress and takes a job with the detective firm that found him out. Being a researcher at the all-female Fitzgerald’s Bureau of Investigation in London is certainly a change of pace from her previous life, especially considering the characters Alison meets in the line of duty. There’s her boss, the estimable Mrs. Fitzgerald; Taron, Alison’s eccentric best friend, who claims her mother is a witch; Jeff, her love-struck, poetry-writing neighbor; and - last but not least! - her psychic postman. Together, their idiosyncrasies and their demands on Alison threaten to drive her mad…if she didn’t need and love them all so much. Clever, quirky, and infused with just a hint of magic, Alison Wonderland is about a memorable heroine coping with the everyday complexities of modern life.

©2011 Helen Smith (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Average Alison

I would like to say I loved this book but unfortunately it didn't seem to have much plot. I enjoyed listening to the narrator, and I know that the story line moved along. The characters were engaging but the story was rather boring. You should still listen to it but I wonder if something in the story somehow just eluded me along the way.

Lost me within the first chapter

This is only the 2nd book out of hundreds that I've stopped listening too almost immediately. The Narrator does a good job, but the story.... immediately I have trouble with it as there is cocaine being snorted on top of a record album (which dates the story right there), mention of abortions, etc... and I'm not an uptight person, but I think the story can only go down from there. It's just not one for me.

More Adventure Than Mystery- But Lots of Fun

What made the experience of listening to Alison Wonderland the most enjoyable?

It was beautifully wacky; the author has a wonderful sense of humor and fun. It is a book that seems to have been written with laughter; that is, I feel as if Helen Smith must have been laughing out loud while she wrote it; I certainly laughed aloud while I listened to it. The whole work is infused with the spirit of fun.

What did you like best about this story?

Every new character I was introduced to was a new joy.

If you could rename Alison Wonderland, what would you call it?

Alison And Taron's Picaresque Peregrinations ...?But Alison Wonderland really captures the essence of the novel better than any title I can think of. Alison has a magical adventure and returns from it changed.

Any additional comments?

The story is more comic novel than mystery; it reminds me more of Daniel Pinkwater's Snarkout Boys (than which I can think of no higher praise) or John Dies at the End than of any mystery novel I can think of, except perhaps some of the odder works of Michael Innes. Anyway, it is amazing how much fun this story is, how it breaks rules of fiction that generally should not be broken (the book doesn't, for instance, have much of a feeling of compositional unity, somehow- I found that I was grasping after a central through-line and never quite finding one) and yet carries the listener through, giggling, to the end. I am charmed and enchanted by this book, and I hope you will be, too.