Dimensions

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Heartless by Marissa Meyer

If you’ve ever read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll or seen any of the movies or musicals inspired by it, you’ll be familiar with the character the Queen of Hearts. Before reading Heartless, I had only ever seen the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland and therefore was only acquainted with the villain as she’s presented in that film. In Disney’s version of the story, there is no background provided on the Queen of Hearts’ or her life, so she is merely a one-dimensional villain that is extremely easy to hate.

Heartless fills that hole that Disney and most other adaptations leave to the imagination. I didn’t actually read the book summary or any description of it before reading it, so the end of the book when it reveals that the main character Catherine becomes the Queen of Hearts was even more shocking to me. Surprisingly, though, the book has the reader sympathizing with and rooting for Catherine the entire time even though she ends up being one of the most arguably dastardly villains in fairytale history.

The reason this book sticks out in my memory so much is because my heart fully broke when Jest died towards the end of the story. Obviously his death was supposed to be sad and maybe make the reader cry a little bit, but I was completely WRECKED by this point in the story and it is what made me re-read Heartless three more times. Never before had I felt sympathy for a character as evil as the Queen of Hearts, but this book gave dimension and humanity to a character that had always been snubbed of these qualities. I am a firm believer in the fact that there are two sides to every story and that people want to be good, so seeing the humanity and context that a re-imagined story could give to someone that used to be so easy to hate really resonated with me. I vividly remember writing a book report on this book in which I told my teacher I would love to bring this story to stage or screen because of the impact it had on me, and it is another reason I am pursuing entertainment as I am. I feel that it is important to remind people of their humanity and the ways that humanity can be hurt or harmed so that we can be better as people, and I feel that the most impactful way to do this is through entertainment.

Work Cited

Meyer, Marissa. Heartless. Feiwel & Friends, 8 Nov. 2016.