Long before she was the terror of Wonderland—the infamous Queen of Hearts—she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.
Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen.
Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.
In her first stand-alone teen novel, the New York Times-bestselling author dazzles us with a prequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

After finishing this book,  human body is 83% disappointment and the rest is animalistic urge to eat caused by non-stoppable talk about baking.

This book, was, uh huh, a pretty bad experience for my part although it sounded pretty promising in synopsis and other reviews. Heartless is a retelling of famous story about the Queen of Spades from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, featuring young Catherin Pinkerton in a land of Hearts. Cath is a daughter of marquess Pinkerton and is expected to fulfill her duties of a highborn lady and marry rich. But, instead of going on balls and looking for a husband, Catherine prefers to bake delicious desserts and fantasize about opening a bakery with her best friend. The King of Hearts brings out a marriage proposal to Catherine, which is a great honor and thrills her family - but not Catherine, who has come to love another. As the time for her decision arrives and the rest in the kingdom of Chess arises, Cath will have to decide between her family’s honor and the desires of her heart.

Heartless brings out an interesting perspective of a story about the Queen of Hearts, as a cold and ruthless ruler with a past behind her. One thing I could never get enough of are Meyer’s fabulous retellings. After reading The Lunar Chronicles aa and few of her novellas, I can say I really like her style. From the moment I started it, I kind of new how this book would end, but that didn’t stop it from surprising me and introducing a few plot twists itself. Meyer gives readers a perfect dose of already known facts, that overlap with original stories, and addition of her own elements which result in recognizable but emotively story.

Aside from the writing, I hated pretty much everything else about this book. The exasperation I felt while reading it cannot be properly described by words. Somehow, I’ve even gotten over the miserable and childish world building, because, oh well, it is a retelling – but, guys, the absolute clusterfuckery that the plot was. I don’t even see how this disorganized mess could have been called an actual plot. For the first half of the book, and that is, my dear friends, 200 pages of absolutely fucking nothing. When I say nothing happened, I mean literally NOTHING happened - nothing didn’t even consider happening because it had no time to do so from all bals, court and Catherin’s whining.

There is a lot of baking, then comes the oh-so-unexpected “plot twist” of king proposing to Catherine, which leads us to a 150 pages of dear Cath deciding what does she want to do with her miserable life. And finally, when things start to get interesting and there is a sight of actual developments on the horizon, everything goes plain straight to hell. I don’t know what that ending was but it was almost everything but good. *spoilers for ending until the end of paragraph* The idea of the tragic ending and ruthless queen that comes out of it was good and I really liked it, especially because it’s kind of painful. But, what happened before that is just………….. When Catherine FINALLY decides what she wants to do with herself, she goes to Chess and it’s all cool cool, there are political issues, tensions and even promises of a war. But then she just turns around and goes back to SAVE HER FRIEND FROM A PUMPKIN GUY and everything about Chess is just forgotten. So naturally, everyone starts doing something they are specifically told not to and Jest ?dies? and s those are 15 pages of the real plot we actually got :)

Catherine Pinkerton is one charming young lady with an exceptional skill for annoying me to pieces. As the book started I rather liked her, more or less, but as things moved on I began to see how spineless she actually is. Her inability to stand for herself makes it impossible to see her as anything else but a spoiled and indecisive brat. Her passion and love for baking were shadowed by her constant submission and lack of protest towards her prevailing mother, her love for Jest lost in her desperate attempts to please her parents while going against everything she believes in. While she was created to arouse sympathy, I only felt bitterness for the waste of a good mc.

The only character I actually liked in this book was Jest, although there could be more about his background from Chess and so. He was pretty cool and we all know I can’t help it with fictional boys who have black hair and crooked smile xd