Okay, first of all, I'd like to say that I love this book so much that I WILL USE CAPITAL LETTERS. This book is SO DAAAAAAARRRNNN GOOOD. I've read it many times, and still my love for this amazing book keeps on flooding all over my life.I RECOMMEND IT SO MUCH. (Although, gotta say, this isn't even my favourite Lynn Austin book. There are books I like better than this. But still, my level of love for this book is HIGH. I adore it so much; it makes me so happy, and it's my FRIEND.)Also, someone ha [...]

This review is shockingly late. I'm sorry friends. The truth is, I don't know WHAT to say about this book. It was so surreal, so fantastical, so beautiful, soI just don't know. I don't know how to explain this book, I don't think it's even possible (I shouldn't even be allowed to review it, because I can feel I'm about to ramble and probably won't make much sense). I've never read a book like Wonderland Creek, that's for sure, but it's the kind of book I think everyone should try at least one. I [...]

How's this for an opening line: "If my life was a book, no one would read it." Told in first-person, Alice goes on to prove herself wrong in this funny and poignant and completely spell-binding story. I bonded with Alice on the very first page -- I mean how could I resist a passionate bibliophile with a penchant for getting into trouble? Alice may live in the pages of her beloved books when we first meet her but she quickly begins writing her own absorbing story when life happens a really big wa [...]

"If my life were a book, no one would read it. People would say it was too boring, too predictable." Right from that very first line, I felt myself identify with Alice. I look at myself at times and wonder what I've accomplished in my life. Like Alice, I often find my nose in a book and love to escape "real" life and live the lives of fictional characters. As she unfortunately discovered, that kind of life can't protect a person from heartache. When her life falls apart, she comes up with a plan [...]

“If my life were a book, no one would read it. People would say it was too boring, too predictable. A story told a million times. But I was perfectly content with my life – that is, until the pages of my story were ripped out before I had a chance to live happily ever after.” Austin has done it again. With Caroline from Candle in the Darkness, I was transported back in time, to Richmond, Virginia through the Civil War. Now, with Wonderland Creek, I found myself in a little town in Kentucky [...]

This book was absolutely adorable, and Alice (or Allie) is a heroine that I like very much simply because I could relate to her so well. Reading constantly day and night? Check. Terrified of horses? Check. Sometimes oblivious to the real world? Check. What I really loved most was her character growth because she started off whiny and entitled, but I was really impressed by how she grew up and changed for the better. And another highlight of the book was Lillie. She's the best, and I absolutely a [...]

Alice is probably one of my favorite characters in fiction. I could almost see her making her way up the mountain delivering so much more than just books. My first and hopefully not my last Lynn Austin. I have to admit what made this one special to me was the love of books in this most interesting read.

This book was SO MUCH FUN to read! It totally kept my interest throughout the entire book. This book is fun, adventurous, compelling and sweet. It has interesting characters and did I say adventures? I enjoyed Alice's character, I could definitely relate to her. Miss Lillie's prayers and love potions made me smile.I had read a book by Lynn Austin a couple of years ago that I didn't love and had just never pick up another by her. I decided to give this one a chance because of all the great review [...]

It was a fun book just the thing I wanted when I lay in a reading slump. It was all about a girl crazy about books. She reminded me of myself and that made it all the more interesting.Clean entertainment all the way .

Early on with my book reviewing I had to make a decision as to what criteria I would use with my marking system. I mean to be honest, there are so many great books out there by so many great authors that I could give everyone 5 stars and feel fine about it. But when I started to pay attention a bit more, I found that there were 2 things that really helped me pick out the 5 star books. The first was writing that truly transported me to that place created by the author that I just couldn’t wait [...]

Once upon a time a friend gave me the opportunity to visit The World's Fair in Chicago, as well as experience some quirky intrigue and sweet romance, by letting me borrow her copy of A Proper Pursuit. When the opportunity arrived to read Wonderland Creek, I dived in and discovered another great story that let me meander Kentucky trails during the Great Depression and find all sorts of crazy adventures.Both of my experiences with Lynn Austin's work have been quite enjoyable! Wonderland Creek is a [...]

Oh my goodness! Are Lynn Austin’s books all this good? I have never read any of her books before Wonderland Creek and I can’t help but wonder what I have been missing out on all this time. My interest in this book started simple enough. Alice Grace is a book lover, well, that’s putting it mildly. I knew Alice was a girl after my own heart on page 23: “The books were stiff and spotlessly clean, with that incomparable new-book fragrance. Is there anything like it in the whole world? I’ve [...]

Okay, this is officially one of my new favorite books.I don't often meet a main character who I really identify with in books, but oh goodness, Alice Grace Ripley and I just might be the same person. (Minus her relationships and her dainty blonde loveliness and her coming from Illinois. Ahem.)I used to be in that place where I was in church every time the doors were open but didn't have a personal relationship with the Lord. I also would have absolutely no idea what to do if you told me to ride [...]

“Wonderland Creek” is one of those stories that I nearly laughed outright at the first chapter and found myself more than just a bit relating to the heroine of the novel, Alice Grace.Alice has her nose stuck in a book and not a single thought planted in reality. She is one of those characters who has so far to grow and to grow up (ha!), but has a voice upon the page that drew me as a reader. And in many ways it was almost uncomfortable the similarities I found in her character and mine. (tho [...]

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did but it was wonderful. In fact it was on the top ten book list of 2012. I started reading it in the middle of a hospital during my Grandma's hip replacement surgery. So it must be good to hold my interest through all that. Allie is a super fun character because I identified with her love of books. She reminds me of Catherine in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Lily is one cool Grandma and I must say I want to steal her.Then there is the love stor [...]

When city-girl Alice Grace (Allie) Ripley volunteers to deliver donated books to the rural town of Acorn, Kentucky, she is transported from her dream world in books to a real life adventure, complete with buried treasure, a fake funeral, night time sleuthing, horse-back riding and a 100 year old town healer named Miss Lillie. It was fun to read Allie's journey to finding the gumption and adventurous spirit she didn't know she had, and each character along the way made the story even better! In m [...]

Such a sweet, sweet read!

Would you like something different than the standard Christian, historical-fiction? Well, then do pick up Wonderland Creek! :) This was a unique, sweet, and thoughtful tale, which I quite enjoyed! I mean, who of us book addicts can't relate to blonde-haired, dreamy-eyed Alice of Illinois? She mundanely goes about her real life, and lives all her adventures in books. She has a boyfriend, but is she in love? No. She has a "best friend", but perhaps its only convenient for her; and her friend gets [...]

This review does contain spoilers reader, beware!Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I read this, but I did not end up liking any of the characters in this book. Especially Allie!! I think the author made her a little too annoying and then didn't do enough to redeem her by the end. Same with Lillie and Mack. I wanted to love Lillie, but I just couldn't quite do it. She just frustrated and annoyed me. The mystery of who shot Mack wasn't much of a mystery to me once bits and pieces kind of came ou [...]

I absolutely loved Wonderland Creek! I think it is probably one of the best realistic fictional books I have ever read! The characters were wonderful and stirred my hearts in different ways due to what June Ann went through with Feather and Maggie’s sorrow of her husband and child! Miss Lillie was a work of art with all her wisdom and 100 year humor with love potions and rifle pointing! I thoroughly enjoyed learning about packhorse librarians! It was so fascinating to read about and see a diff [...]

Lynn Austin has been a favorite author of mine since I read the Chronicles of the Kings series. And Fire by Night? Amazing read, easily in my all time favorites. She is one of those authors I don’t need to really know what the book is about, I’ll probably read it anyway. Thus bringing me to Wonderland Creek. It’s a story about a girl who reads too much (wha??), preferring the world of books and fiction, ignoring the real world. She’s soon given the opportunity to deliver books to a poor [...]

This book is AMAZING!!! I relate so much to the main character, Allie, which is why I think I love this book so much! It had an element of everything - romance, adventure, christian, etc. I learned a lot from this book such as trustworthy and perseverance, but I think the main theme is to be daring because you only have one life to live. Just think - Allie never would have helped Acorn if she never had been daring! 

(It's a gentle 2 though, I would probably give it a 2.5.)Alice Grace Ripley is a fairly sweet, but naive, shallow and somewhat selfish girl. She works in a library and would rather escape into the fantasy world of books than do just about anything else. Living in an Illinois city during the Great Depression, she manages to live a cushy life as a minister's daughter and enjoys the comforts of modern life. When her boyfriend (who works at the family business funeral parlor) decides he's had enough [...]

Alice is adorable. She's so stuck in her imagination. She loses her job and her fiance in the same week, and decides to personally take the books she's collected for a library in rural Kentucky, and stay and help for a couple weeks. The day after she arrives a man is shot. Alice becomes too busy living life that she doesn't have time to read about it. And her life in Kentucky is anything but normal. It's depression era, the mine has been shut down, the town has a feud between two main families, [...]

This was a fun read recommended to me by my 92 yr old Grama. :)

Wonderland Creek by Lynn AustinWhat an excellent book! The first chapters I could not help but laugh out loud and towards the end the tears came. Between than there was mystery and suspense as well. The story is told from the view of Alice Grace Ripley, a twenty-two year old woman who is lost in her world of books. Her boyfriend of one year, Gordon, breaks up after he catches her reading during a funeral at his parents funeral parlor. He tells her she lives more in her world of fiction than the [...]

I checked Wonderland Creek out through my local library last week--onto my kindle. I’ve read one other book by Lynn Austin—the only other one I knew to be written in first person point of view, A Proper Pursuit. And perhaps over the years I started to wonder if she’d only written that one book in first person just to see if she could do it well (which she did—an amazing job, in fact!), and stopped looking after so long. Well, somehow in the last month or so I found out about her book Won [...]

Allie Ripley, is a spoiled young lady, who looses herself in books. The perfect job she could ever have in a library comes to a sad end, when the Depression causes the library board to cut the payroll expenses. Imagine her own surprise when she finds that she has invited herself to ride to Kentucky with her aunt and uncle, who are going to a spa treatment. She decides the books that she collected for her book drive can be hand delivered and she will spend the two weeks her relatives are at the s [...]

Title: WONDERLAND CREEKAuthor: Lynn AustinPublisher: Bethany HouseOctober 2011ISBN: 978-0-7642-0498-2Genre: Inspirational/historical fictionAlice Grace Ripley lives in a dream world, with her nose stuck in a book. But the happily-ever-after she’s planned on suddenly falls apart when her boyfriend breaks up with her, accusing her of living in a fictional world instead of a real one. To tope it off, Alice loses her job at the library due to the Great Depression.Longing to escape the gossip of he [...]

What an outstanding book! Probably near the top of listif there were more than 5 stars this story would rate that.Alice Ripley is 22 years old and lives with her Mother and Pastor father in Blue Island, IL. When the story begins her boyfriend Gordon has just broken up with her and the ongoing Depression of the time, has caused her loss of employment. She had worked as a Librarian and had been collecting books for a poor mine town in KY. When she finds out that her Aunt and Uncle will be travelin [...]