For such a skinny volume, this was jam-packed with stuff. I'll be going over each section individually. First, the more general stuff:

This book was lovely, and I liked a lot of things about it, but as an English-language release it had problems. The biggest one was that, as far as I can tell, none of the games are currently available in English, and this was clearly written for people with access to Alice in the Country of Diamonds: Wonderful Wonder World. Several sections were either useless or overly confusing without the game.

Although my experience with the franchise is limited to the English-language translations of the manga (which I still haven't completely finished reading) and the Alice in the Country of Diamonds light novel, I still got a lot out of this book. I'm not clamoring to own a copy of my very own (I checked this out via interlibrary loan), but I'm glad I requested it and got to read it.

I would like to mention one thing, though. I've seen this tagged as an artbook, and I'd hesitate to call it that. The artwork is a big reason for English-language folks to buy this, but the only section that's really devoted to the game's artwork is the "Illustration Gallery." That section has nice, large images, even when they're not full-page. Every other section has images that are maybe 1-4 inches wide. It's sort of a combination artbook, game guide, and promotional extras collection.

Now for the various sections.

About the Alice Series:

Helpful if your knowledge of the franchise is spotty or rusty, although I'd highly recommend that newbies to the franchise at least try some of the manga before picking this book up. It's a fan book, after all.

Mostly information I already knew. This section did give me a little more of the Alice in the Country of Diamonds context than the one light novel gave me, though, so that was nice.

Illustration Gallery:

Lots of full-color and often full-page illustrations and promotional art, with occasional comments from Mamenosuke Fujimaru, the artist. I loved this section, even though the artwork for this series tends to be busier than I'd like. It made me appreciate the book's larger page measurements.

Character Introductions:

Character introductions for everyone you might possibly meet in the game. The more important characters each got two pages with a brief description, a couple full-body illustrations, smaller facial expression illustrations, a brief profile, sample illustrations from the game, and a comment from Mamenosuke Fujimaru, the artist. Peter and Alice's sister got a page of info each (full-body illustration, facial expressions, description), while the Faceless characters only got a single page for all of them combined.

These introductions were nice, especially since I didn't get to see many of the new characters in the Alice in the Country of Diamonds light novel. However, they got a bit boring after a while. I was struck by how little variation there was between some of the facial expressions. For example, the only difference between Blood's “Cold 01” expression and his “Shy 01” expression was that the “shy” expression had a very slight blush and the “cold” expression had a slightly open mouth.

One amusing thing I noticed: the game's creators went to a lot of effort to keep most of Alice's potential love interests from being over 30. Wonderland math apparently does not work the same as real world math. For example, Ace is listed as being 12-14 years old as a child and 23-26 as an adult. Julius is 24-27 years old when taking care of child Ace, which means he should at least be 35-38 - maybe 33-36 at the youngest. Instead, he's 27-30 when Ace is an adult. The only character in the whole game who was allowed to be over 30 was Jericho Bermuda.

Character Routes:

These pages were a jumble of screenshots and words in various fonts and colors. It was overwhelming, to be honest. They gave me a sense of the different kinds of endings available for each character, but without access to the game for comparison, they were too confusing to really enjoy.

Something that shocked me: Alice is actually killed in one of the Twins' endings. I couldn't tell if it was because they killed her or because they didn't care enough about her to try to protect her during a shootout. Also, one of Sidney's endings had her being imprisoned by him, which reminded me uncomfortably of Toma's route in Amnesia.

Territories:

All kinds of background illustrations for the various territories featured in the game. Unfortunately, they were all very small – as many as 12 background illustrations per page. I'd have preferred at least a few full-page illustrations.

Interview & Commentary:

A short interview with Mamenosuke Fujimaru, and a short commentary written by Kou Satsuki, the scriptwriter. A few tidbits of info here and there, but otherwise “meh.” I did like that Fujimaru actually named favorite characters when asked to do so, rather than prevaricating.

Perfect Capture Guide:

This section would have been wonderful for anyone with access to the game. It included pages and pages of choices, the lines preceding the choices, and info about the effects those choices would have.

Anyone who just wants to know how to get to a particular ending in the game would love this section. As someone who doesn't have access to the game, I skipped it.

Exclusive Comics:

After the “Perfect Capture Guide” section, the book had to be flipped over in order to read the manga parts from right to left. The exclusive comics appeared to be continuations of a couple different endings from the game, the Twins' “Dead End” and Sidney's “Best End.”

The Sidney one was okay. Alice worried that Crysta would be a better fit for Sidney, and Sidney reassured her and told her a little about how he and Crysta first met.

The Twins' one was a continuation of that ending I mentioned, the one where Alice ended up getting killed. From what I could tell, her “death” transported her to another Wonderland, one where the Twins once again didn't remember her. She had some trust issues and doubted their willingness to protect her, due to them having let her die in the other Wonderland, but they seemed to have vague memories of liking her.

One thing I really liked: the pages were much larger than I was used to Alice in the Country pages being, and the artwork was pretty and crisp.

Previously Published Comics:

This section was fabulous. It started with some full-page gags and then morphed into four-panel comics. I thought it'd be boring, because a large number of the comics were focused on summarizing the franchise for those who were unfamiliar with it, and the remaining ones were devoted to explaining Alice in the Country of Diamonds. However, these all turned out to be much funnier than I expected. And also heavier on the fanservice and fanservice-related jokes – my favorites were probably the bit with Crysta (oh come on, one yuri route wouldn't hurt) and the bit with the twins (“The voice acting is incredible. The panting is very realistic and sexy.” (116) My laugh took me by surprise and I nearly choked on my tea).

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I wasn't sure if the Alice in the Country of Diamonds fan book was ever going to come in, and I couldn't justify buying it, but it finally arrived!

I requested I Am Not a Serial Killer after reading about it on B&N's post, "5 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books That Treat Mental Illness with Compassion." The comparison to Jeff Lindsay's Dexter was both the thing that intrigued me and the thing that made me raise an eyebrow about the book being on that particular list.

In this book, Alice experiences a “move” and ends up in the Country of Diamonds. Although many of the people are familiar, no one seems to know who she is. The very first people she sees are Elliot and the twins, all of whom try to kill her. Even Blood is suspicious of her, and only starts to unbend a tiny bit after she saves the life of one of his Faceless employees. Alice gradually comes to the conclusion that the Country of Diamonds is Wonderland's past.

Alice settles into the Hatter Mansion as best she can, arranging books in the Hatter family library, attending Survey Meetings, and getting to know this unsettlingly different Blood. Diamonds Blood is a little rougher around the edges than the Blood Alice remembers being friends with in Hearts and Clover, less composed and secure in his position. Part of her wonders if it would have been better for her to stay in someone else's territory, but part of her kind of likes this version of Blood. Still, is it a good idea to get too close to him, or anyone in Diamonds for that matter, when she doesn't have a clue how long she'll get to stay before the next move?

All right, I'll begin by saying that newbies to this franchise shouldn't start here. This book assumes that readers are at least familiar with Alice in the Country of Hearts and Alice in the Country of Clover. If you're not sure where to begin, I'd advise you to start with Yen Press's three Alice in the Country of Hearts omnibus volumes. Then you can either continue on with any of the stories starring your favorite Alice in the Country of Hearts guys (the story essentially resets, with Alice falling in love with someone new each time), or you can move on to Alice in the Country of Clover, beginning with Seven Seas' seven Cheshire Cat Waltz volumes. If you'd like to know who one of the guys in the “cast of characters” list at the beginning of Alice in the Country of Diamonds: Bet On My Heart is, you might want to read the seven Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar's Game volumes next, but it's not strictly necessary (although I imagine it would be, if you wanted to understand other Diamonds stories).

And this is where we get to one of the problems with Bet On My Heart: it's not meant to be the best entry point into the Country of Diamonds. I haven't read any other Diamonds stories, and I haven't played any of the games, but this novel felt exactly like reading one of the Heart, Clover, or Joker one-shots – I could see that information was being left out that was probably better explored in another story. For example, most of the characters mentioned on the “cast of characters” pages barely got any page-time. Joker didn't appear at all. Alice had frequent dizzy spells that I thought were going to lead to either Nightmare or Joker scenes, but in the end nothing happened and her dizzy spells were never explained. Also, Alice discovered evidence that Diamonds maybe wasn't the past at all, but some kind of alternate timeline. This mystery was left unresolved. Readers didn't even get an explanation for the frequent vague comments that Jericho Bermuda, a rival mafia boss, was already dead even though he appeared to be very much alive.

In my past experience with this franchise, I found that the Blood stories were generally the best. I didn't necessarily think he was the best match for Alice, but his similarity to her tutor back in the real world tended to tease out the series' most interesting mystery threads. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here. Although Alice frequently compared Diamonds Blood to Hearts and Clover Blood, she never once found herself thinking about her tutor, her sister, or her life back in the real world.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy reading this. The romance between Alice and Blood was nice enough, if a bit rushed, and I enjoyed getting to know more about the Country of Diamonds, which I had only seen a tiny bit of in volume 7 of Circus and Liar's Game. The Survey Meetings were much more interesting and tension-filled than the balls in Hearts and meetings in Clover, and I loved that the final Survey Meeting played an important part in Blood and Alice's romance. Oh, and I liked that books were a big part of Alice and Blood's developing relationship. As Blood grew more comfortable with her, he recommended books to her and let her borrow some of the ones in his personal collection. Be still, my heart.

Jericho Bermuda was an intriguing new character, although maybe a tad too kind and likeable, considering that this was supposed to be Blood and Alice's romance. I found myself wishing that Jericho were Alice's love interest any time Blood's mood soured or he hit Elliot with his cane (I don't recall him being that abusive towards Elliot in the other countries, but maybe it just sticks out more in prose than in manga panels?). There were some nice scenes in Jericho's art museum, but I never got to know as much about his dual roles as Gravekeeper and owner of the museum as I would have liked.

I did a bit of checking and, as far as I can tell, this is the only Alice in the Country of Diamonds story that's been licensed and translated into English. Keeping that in mind, Bet On My Heart was a workable if slightly frustrating introduction to this part of the franchise. There were lots of unresolved mysteries and unanswered questions, but at least the romance between Alice and Blood had some good moments.

Additional Comments:

Like many light novels, this one includes a few black-and-white illustrations. However, it also begins and ends with several manga pages. Like the rest of the novel, the pages are read from left to right, but the artwork is unflipped, so the panels and speech bubbles must be read from right to left. This wasn't explained, and I didn't immediately realize it, so the first two or three pages were a little confusing.

Extras:

Two color illustrations (both of which are used in the front and back cover art) and an afterword that left me wondering if the “certain something” the author was referring to was Blood's hat or something else.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

This read like one of the single-volume Hearts/Clover/Joker stories - like it wasn't the work you should read as your introduction to the new country. Except I think it's the only Diamonds story available in English. Ugh.

It's probably the novelty of this being set in a whole new country, but it's actually not that bad so far. I'm enjoying getting to know the new rules, new characters, and differences in the old characters.

A couple things, though:

- I may be remembering this wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Vivaldi became a Role-Holder before Blood did. Since the Country of Diamonds has Blood as a Role-Holder, but not Vivaldi, either the writer screwed up, or it takes place in an alternate timeline. (ETA: I just realized there's a third option. She could be a Role-Holder, but not physically present in the Country of Diamonds, the way Gowland and Julius are in the Country of Hearts but not the Country of Clover.)

- Ugh, the beginning manga pages. This is primarily a novel, but it begins and ends with a few manga pages. You read the book from left to right, but the individual manga pages are unflipped, so you have to read the panels and dialogue from right to left. It took me three confusing pages to figure this out.