Book Review: Heartless by Marissa Meyer- The story before she was the Queen of Hearts

I say this every time, but I just cannot get enough of the fractured fairy tale genre. This time Marissa Meyer tells us the Queen of Hearts story, who she was before she became queen. As we know from Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is not a nice person, she is angry and quick to chop off anyone's head! She is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of. But has anyone stopped to think what has made her this way? She can't have always been like this, so this is her story and it has made me look at the Queen of Hearts with new eyes.
I did not expect to get quite so emotionally involved in this as I did. It was actually quite heart-wrenching. Catherine's pain was almost palpable. Everyone is trying to do what they think is best for her when they are completely disregarding what would truly make her happy. Despite knowing that Cath won't get her happily ever after, I just couldn't help hoping that Cath would get a different ending. I loved Cath as a character and her clear passion and talent for baking really shone through. I wanted her to set up a bakery almost as much as she did. The world building in this is incredible, it has all the hints of the Wonderland we know and some familiar faces, but before Alice came along; before everything changed.  The romance in this was just incredible. The relationship between Cath and Jest has got to be the best and most believable book romances I have ever read! I wanted what they had, I was desperate for them to be together. There was just something so real and raw for what they felt for one another and it was actually beautiful.
This book pretty much destroyed me at the end. I almost couldn't bring myself to pick it up and read those final few pages, it was that heartbreaking. I knew what was coming, but I just could not let go of that hope that things would turn out differently.
Marissa Meyer has written a highly addictive story with an unexpected amount of feels.