The synopsis didn’t do this dystopian retelling justice. This brought nostalgia as I guessed the stand-ins for the Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass characters represented in this book. The plot didn’t grab my attention right away, but I was fully invested once it switched to dual POV between Alyson “Aly” (Alice) and Maddox “Mad” (The Mad Hatter). It’s not a love story, but the romance element did help add some lightness around the topics of disinformation, oppression, and survival that were infused into the core of the plot.