Gregor the Overlander

Gregor the Overlander is a fun, quick read that follows the Alice in Wonderland template pretty closely, but with a few key changes that add a lot of emotional resonance. Gregor doesn't fall into the Underland alone, he follows his baby sister in, which means he spends a lot of the book taking care of a toddler. He's also reluctant to stay, knowing how much his mother will worry when her kids don't come home. It takes a lot - the promise of finding out what happened to his missing father - to bring him around to the idea of adventuring.

Then again, there are parts of this book that remind me of nearly every other book in this genre. There's a quest and a prophecy. Friends and enemies met along the way. A world to be saved by a chosen one, and a map for how to do that. There are more twists, though. I'm not sure I've read many of these books that contain actual death and betrayal, and then deal with the shock and grief that come in their wake. I saw Henry's death coming a mile away, but it was done very well and ended up affecting me more than I expected it to.

Ultimately, though, this book just made me want to revisit Redwall. Between the human-sized animals and the riddle-prophecy, I was getting longings to return to the mice and rabbits in that little abbey in the woods. I'll have to see if my brother still has those books somewhere.

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