Review: Untamed by A. G. Howard

Untamed
Author: A. G. Howard
Series: Splintered #3.5
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retelling
Release Date: December 15th 2015
Book Length: 273 pages

Publisher: Abrams 

Alyssa Gardner went down the rabbit hole and took control of her destiny. She survived the battle for Wonderland and the battle for her heart. In this collection of three novellas, join Alyssa and her family as they look back at their memories of Wonderland.

In Six Impossible Things, Alyssa recalls the most precious moments of her life after Ensnared, and the role magic plays in preserving the happiness of those she loves. Alyssa’s mother reminisces about her own time in Wonderland and rescuing the man who would become her husband in The Boy in the Web. And Morpheus delves into Jeb’s memories of the events of Splintered in The Moth in the Mirror, available in print for the first time.

This collection expands upon Ensnared's epilogue, and includes some deleted scenes to provide a “director’s cut” glimpse into the past and futures of our favorite Splintered characters.

Goodreads / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble 

Review

I think Untamed was one of my most anticipated novellas, like ever… Morpheus is such a freaking dreamboat and his relationship with Alyssa is everything, my obsession with them throughout the Splintered series only grew and grew. For those of you who don’t know, Untamed is actually split into 3 short stories: The Boy in the Web, The Moth in the Mirror and Six Impossible Things.

            The Boy in the Web: This was about Alyssa’s mother Alison; it focused on her past before she was a wife and a mother. We saw Alison from a young age, how she met Morpheus and her time in Wonderland, leading up to the moment she decided to betray Morpheus and save the young boy from a spider. The Boy in the Web was okay and that was all. I enjoyed reading about Alison but at the same time I wasn’t really interested, more on this later.

            The Moth in the Mirror: Now this novella had already been released but I managed to avoid reading it until Untamed but my reaction would have been the same whenever I read it: TOO MUCH JEB. Plain and simple, also looking at past memories just isn’t very entertaining to read about, I kept waiting for something to happen to keep my interest.

            Six Impossible Things: Finally some Alyssa and Morpheus, this is what us Splintered fans have been waiting for.. what 3 books now? This short novella was all dedicated to Alyssa’s life after Ensnared but what I didn’t expect was for Jeb to, yet again dominate another part of the book, I mean The Moth in the Mirror was all Jeb, damn it! So a few of the stories talked about Alyssa’s life with Jeb, their marriage, children, grandchildren, losing their parents and eventually Jeb’s death. Then we finally get to Alyssa and Morpheus but at this point it’s so long overdue and I look at how many pages I’m getting of their relationship and I’m instantly saddened (not enough, not by a long shot). So we look at three memories and they were lovely, I absolutely adore Morpheus and Alyssa but my only complaint was the length and the fact that they didn’t really show the fiery or the trickery nature of their relationship *sigh*, although there were some amazing moments it just wasn’t what I was hoping for.

I think my hopes were far too high for this one, although in my defense I didn’t actually think it was going to be riddled with Jeb and Alison’s stories but it would have been completely unfair to Howard for me to actually expect a book based on my favorite characters. However like I said earlier in my review, what I was reading was good but I wasn’t invested in it—this was just me as a reader so this may not be the case for everyone as we all read books differently. Nevertheless the moments I wanted happened, I only wish there was more of it, I will miss this series and characters so much.