Heartless by Marissa Meyer & Making My Own Custom UberPrints T-Shirt

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Catherine is the most talented baker in Hearts, but those talents are about to go to waste!!  You see, the dim-witted King has his eye on her, and her dreams of opening her own bakery are slowly dying with every (not-so-subtle) hint he sends.

Then she meets Jest-- the mysterious and magical court jester.  Things feel magnetic between them, which makes Cath determined to go after her dreams.  But in a land of magic and chaos, things rarely go as planned.

Heartless was one of the most anticipated 2016 books by pretty much everyone in the YA book world.  It's the first non-Lunar Chronicles book by Marissa Meyer, and even though it is another retelling, I was still super excited to see what else she would come up with when out of the LC world.

Heartless is the story of the future Queen of Hearts-- Catherine Pinkerton, the daughter of a Marquess who happens to have caught the eye of the King.  The thing is, Catherine has no intention of becoming a queen-- all she wants to do is open a bakery with her maid Mary Ann, and maybe, just maybe, fall in love for real.  In the world she lives in, this dream is a long-shot.  Her mother is delighted that the King has showed interest in Catherine, and it's not the most progressive world.  Women in Hearts have dowries and must get the permission of their fathers for marriage/not to get married.  So, Cath is hoping for a miracle.  She's hoping to make the King NOT want to marry her... and then she meets the Court Jester.

Jest and Cath have an immediate flirtation going on, and at first it felt like too many YA relationship beginnings, BUT at some point, I really really liked these two.  Jest was able to do amazing, magical things, and Cath became more herself when she was with him.  He showed her a world she never would have seen, but also, sighhhh.  Well, you know she DOES end up as an evil queen, so her heart is going to shatter.

About halfway through the book, I realized I was completely enchanted.  It's pretty much a perfect prequel.  It draws on the book--

• example: when the Turtle turns into the Mock Turtle at the festival, it's a imagining of The Lobster Quadrille chapter in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 
• and the monster which terrorizes Hearts: the Jabberwock is based on a poem called Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass.

AND the Disney movie--

• example: the King is EXACTLY like the Disney version of the King, small and dumb.

--and it makes sense of both.  All of the oddness is explained in a way that makes it feel perfectly normal and believable in this land.  All the characters and settings were accounted for, and so many of the loose ends were explained if you think ahead to the book/movies, which I found so smart and cool.

My favorite part: I really loved that Catherine was so LIKABLE.  I honestly didn't see HOW Marissa Meyer was going to turn the book and make her into what we know she becomes-- but somehow she totally pulled it off.  Honestly, at the end I could feel her wrath and I empathized with her fury.

OVERALL: A great standalone from Marissa Meyer.  It was just enough of a departure from The Lunar Chronicles while keeping the same feel of a retelling/prequel.  I loved that she made sense of the nonsense and had me thinking about this book every time I had to be away from it.  I can't rec it enough for the Alice fan!!

My Rating: 4.5/5

**It's from the movie not the book-- but I'll ALWAYS be a Wildflower**

• So UberPrints asked me to collaborate with them to create my own custom t-shirt & I was totally PUMPED!!
• I've always wanted a shirt that I designed-- and since I was about to read Heartless at the time, I decided to do an Alice in Wonderland inspired shirt.
• It was SUPER easy to make-- their website is so user-friendly.
• AND all the graphics I used were stock graphics-- they have a really good graphic and font selection!!
• I would definitely recommend making your own bookish tees (I know I'm not done)-- but also, you could totally make one like Lisa did and do your Blog or Bookstagram on a tee!!

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