What do readers think of Outside Wonderland by Lorna Jane Cook? Write your own review.

As I grow older I become increasingly less tolerant of self centered characters making “rookie mistakes”. So I have to say that while I liked Outside Wonderland - I did not particularly like any of the Stenen children, and felt their woe-is-me attitudes that offered them the mutual “out” for self absorbed, lousy decision-making, made for insipid and uninteresting protagonists. That said, I didn’t dislike the book, in fact I found it to be a fast and generally entertaining read. I much preferred the interaction in the afterlife between the Stenen parents and felt their relationship was much more real and potentially interesting than those of their offspring. I also felt the prose in the “Here” (afterlife) sections was vastly superior to that in the “There” or real life moments. I liked Outside Wonderland fine as written; I would have loved it had all been written like those incandescent glimpses of “Here” were.

You will journey into the lives of three adult siblings who lost their parents as children; Alice, Dinah, and Griffen, (named after the characters in the Lewis Carroll stories).
Each one, in very different ways, tries to cope and to find happiness in their lives and the world. As you watch them try and navigate their way in the world, you will also see their lives through their 'parents' eyes up in Heaven, ("Here").
Loss, betrayal, faith, love and family are some of the themes running through this novel
If you are not open to religious themes, this novel may not be for you.

Even though I cared about the characters and what happened to them, the book seemed just a step above a romance novel or soap opera. The writing was competent, but not exciting. I will not recommend it to demanding readers.

The main subject of this book is the love lives of the brother and two sisters whose mother and father died when the children were very young. There was a lot of sadness in each of the three adults' lives. I personally felt that the book would have sustained itself without adding the viewpoints of the mother and father throughout the story.

Out of Wonderland is a book I kept wanting to like. As I read it I wanted to care about the three children: Alice, Dinah and Grif, but I didn't. I didn't like them, though I did want to know what happened to them in the end, I wasn't really invested in their fates.

I was intrigued with the premise of three orphaned children and their parents following their lives from heaven. But, their Greek Chorus parents were not involved in any meaningful way in their lives. They did not really know their children or care. None of us seemed to care about anyone or anything. When I finished the book I felt sorry for us all and the waste of time we had all exerted in this enterprise.

Too many storylines make this book a very choppy read. My head hurt just trying to keep up with what was happening. Could one family really suffer from this much chaos? The author threw everything into the storyline from death, angels from heaven, sickness, infidelity, homosexuality and an unwed mother. I wouldn't even suggest this book as a good beach read. Sorry.