Feast or Famine: Wonderland

Information

Status

Ongoing

Year

2022

Author

VoraVora

• FoF Halloween Special
  Jun 16, 2025
• Garden of Memories II
  Mar 2, 2024
• Garden of Memories I
  Sep 6, 2023
• A Very Famished Christmas
  Dec 17, 2022
• Mad Tea Party (Redux) II
  Sep 17, 2022
• Mad Tea Party (Redux) I
  Sep 10, 2022
• Feast or Famine on KU
  Jan 8, 2023
• Welcome to Wonderland IV
  Feb 22, 2022
• Welcome to Wonderland III
  Feb 19, 2022
• Welcome to Wonderland II
  Feb 17, 2022
• Welcome to Wonderland I
  Feb 12, 2022

Reviews

Community Reviews(10)

• Addicted_Reader720Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I really liked reading this story and expect to continue liking it for a long while to come.
  What makes Feast or Famine Unique is the Protagonist. Her internal monologue, to me at least is highly relatable, or at least comprehensible as the actual internal thoughts of someone in the situation the opening arc puts her in.
  It's also cool how VoraVora depicts her mood swings and bouts of irrational action. Sometimes it can feel as though the irrational actions of someone in the story are just there to fit into a mold for how a character should act or are just there for plot purposes.
  I'm sure that both situations are present here, but the internal thoughts of the protagonist in leading up to and during those actions are just as detailed as my internal thoughts when I make up some bullshit reason for doing something that I shouldn't do, to the point that you can accept a lot of pretty crazy stuff that goes on even in the first few chapters.
  Real Quick on the Worldbuilding: It's great, no pure infodumps in the first chapters, and it really hits the sweet spot of 'showing' the crazy nonsense the Author makes up instead of 'telling'.
  Hopefully my winding rant has persuaded you to give this a shot!
• TuringCompleteRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  As the synopsis says, the MC is well adjusted and totally, entirely sane and stable. Trust her.
  This story is very much something that hits a particular niche and it's beautiful within it. It is not for everyone, but the execution is brilliant. The only story I've read on RR like it, that I can remember, is How to Tame Your Princess. If you liked that, stop reading this review and go read the story. If you hated that... well, yeah probably not for you. If you've never heard of it (most people reading this?)... well, that's what the rest of the review is for.
  Grammar score: No errors in spelling or grammar or whatever that I've seen, if there are any typos, it's minimal and infrequent.
  Style score: The story is written in first person present tense, which is my personal favorite combination when done right, which as far as I've seen, this is. The prose is well done, and the narration reflects the MCs... complete sanity and stability.
  Story score: There's not too much to say yet (even at the slightly advanced point from which I'm writing this compared to the chapters on RR), but we appear to be in for a wild ride. The world building is a bit of a mystery so far, however, so I'll just trust in the "Urban Fantasy" tag.
  Character score: Character is honestly where this story shines most. Specifically, the main character, since even with my (very limited) foreknowledge, we've only seen two other characters and one of them very indirectly. The main character, however talks to herself, hangs her emotions on a pendulum, and is generally an Experience. She's more than a little edgy, but in a vaguely self-aware way that's intentional on the author's part, and it's fun rather than painful as a result. Morgan as a POV character is a work of art and I highly recommend it.
• WebwovenRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  A lot of critisim has been leveled at movies from large studios about thier "soullessness"; it's a hard critique to ground in any kind of objective observation, and just more of a vibe that people generally agree makes for less interesting content. Feast or Famine is the exact oppocite of this; reading FoF feels like cutting the author open and feeling around for her traumas and failings. So many bits of this book feel like the kind of things you'd realize about yourself while sobbing incoherently at the therapists' office; the amount of raw emotion is unlike anything I've read before, and I genuinely don't think the vast majority of people will ever be capable of writing something like this.
  Even more remarkable, you'd expect something so personal to be...specific, sort of. You'd expect that people unlike the author wouldn't really be able to "get" the book, or at the very least they'd suffer some fundamental disconnect, and I can confidently say that doesn't happen here. The way Vora writes can show you how she feels and how she acts even if you have zero common traits with her.
  Any time I think about Feast or Famine, the word my mind keeps returning to is "Beautiful". Which is a little strange, as I don't really like to use the term, but I think it's apt here. I've never really found nature to be beautiful, and I've never really found visual art to be beautful either, and those are the two go-to things people tend to refer to when they talk about beauty; but I think Feast or Famine is beautiful. I can't tell you why, I can only ask you to read the story for yourself and see it for yourself.
• XelarimRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  First of all if you dont like dark moments then this novel isnt for you because I absolutley love the dark tones here.The world building is also top tier with some lovecraftian elements in the mix.It depicts diiferent kinds of characters in such a dark and mysterious world most f who may have bad or worse intentions.The in depth explanations of the world were deeply philisophical and enjoyable.Lastly the characters.I like how the main character is depicted here where I can hate them or sympathise with them but also a well written dark empath.Also try not to self insert with the protag too.Overall a great dark fantasy!
• Zodiac36GoldRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Some people say that the clinical definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing again and again, and expecting things to change". I like to chuckle in the faces of said people. Because they are right, but also wrong. That definition doesn't encompass the whole of insanity, all its beauty and evil.
  This book now, this book does a very good job in doing that. We have our protagonist, a girl who apparently seems to have a problem with names, because she changes her own name multiple time in the first book. She is, naturally, an absolutely normal person and not a literal mountain of psychological problems that goes so high up that one would hear their own neck crack from how high they'd have to look up.
  But, even with that, she absolutely works perfectly and is perfectly sane.
  ...
  Just kidding, she isn't.
  I cannot even begin to state just how much I love how Alice here isn't one of the good guys, knows full well she isn't, and after that embraces fully her nature and slowly turns into a monster. And I'm not speaking figuratively. There's so much to say about this story, but this is just meant to be a review, and to even begin to dive in how well this is written one would have to spoiler many things.
  So, to end this all:
  -Style: 10 out of 10. Every penny spent on Book 1 is worth it.
  -Grammar: Absolutely flawless.
  -Story: Need I say more?
  -Character: Do I have to repeat myself?
  Read this book guys and galls, you will not regret it. Boy scout honor.
• jumpsplat120Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I read the two books that are out on Kindle unlimited and I got to say, I'm absolutely obsessed. Our main character Alice is so wonderfully flawed and you just want to root for her. The world is dark, but so so flavorful. the nature of the magic forces the characters to ask, who am I really?
  I want to read more of this and I never want to stop reading it
• ozovioRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Feast or Famine is a delightful story about a young woman who randomly finds herself in a new bizarre world with no warnings, clues or context. She tries to piece together what is going on quite aggressively and her internal monologues, and sometimes dialogues, are highly entertaining. Her approach to things is quite meta and her judgment is NOT sound but she is also internally aware of these details, with apparent inconsistencies both noted by the character and explained through the story.
  The author has a strong voice that is immediately relatable and does an excellent job of pulling you in; I'll honestly say that this story has probably done that better than any other I've read on Royal Road to date. The style is humorous, witty, irreverent, philosophical and dark. There are strong horror elements but little focus upon graphic details of gore and appropriate trigger warnings at the start of each chapter. Real world references are quite common and given sufficient context and explanation that they can be readily interpreted without foreknowledge while remaining concise and not disrupting the flow of the story. A possible exception to this are philosophical concepts.
  I’m really looking forward to seeing how this develops as it goes forward!
• AverichollieRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  We open into a Japanese horror story at the side of our plucky young protagonist amid Alice in Wonderland allusions and a terrible, skimpy little schoolgirl outfit.  But our Alice is not quite well, the school isn't quite a school, and so on, etc, etc.
  I admit that edgy Alice in Wonderland remixes are overdone.  Nothing about this tale is overdone.  It is, foremost, a character study.  If you are a fan of dark minds, strange traumas, and interesting psychologies this is a story for you.  And correspondingly, the characterization of our Alice is top-notch.  She is devient, complex and with well developed drives.  The other characters, too, are developed according to the needs placed upon them - but may of them debut in later chapters, and I will avoid spoiling them here.
  Authors who attempt to include thematics and philosophy in their stories tend to look somewhat like a regurgitated Philosophy 101 course, but FoF neatly avoids this, featuring some actually pretty interesting (yet not too esoteric as to be offputting) takes, and all of it is within character and serves to move the story along.  A+.
  Obligatory comment on spelling and grammar: the author clearly works carefully to ensure that the text of the content does not interfere with the story.
  It's clear that the author finds great joy in - anime, jRPGs, MtG, DnD, interesting psychologies, actually decent takes on philosophy, delightful edginess, and so on.  If even any one of those things is your jam, then you are in for such a ride.
• Cacophony__Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  For the longest time, when self-evaluating what kind of fantasy writing I most enjoy, I've written off edgy stuff because it's not my thing. I am no longer in denial.
  Overall score: this story is deliciously self-indulgent in so many ways and, so far, it is an utter delight to read. While Feast or Famine is not a story that will appeal to everyone, it doesn't try to be.
  Grammar score: the few errors that are able to slip past the beta readers and make it chapter releases are usually corrected after refreshing the page.
  Story score: While the main plot has been interesting and quite solid so far, I am currently coming back more for the characters than I am the plot. I have enjoyed the setting and magic a lot so far, but I have a strong impression that its real strengths haven't been demonstrated yet, despite some exposition. The interludes are interesting, and the author seems to be making an effort to quickly tie them into the main story so that they don't detract from the readers' enjoyment of it. While the plot isn't the strongest yet, the setting makes up for it and I'm eagerly awaiting the inevitable moment where things kick off and start running. For now? Pretty good.
  Style score: the narration is cleanly written, and the effectiveness with which it reflects the character delivering it is a mark of mastery. The main storyline is written in first-person, present-tense, which helps frame the story more snugly in the mind of the perspective character. The first interlude (as of yet no more have been released) is written in second/third person, past-tense, and this distinction is used to great effect. These aspects are small, but they add to the story when combined with the characters themselves, and are a mark of the author's mastery. My one complaint is over how frequently references come up, but the important ones are all explained, they make sense in the context of the character, and they aren't pervasive enough to detract from the story.
  Character score: while
• DeerliRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Feast or Famine is a story I can happily say I fell in love with by the end of it. It is definitely a darker work filled with trauma and violence, but despite the bleak setting I never found it hard to keep reading thanks to Vora's fantastic dialogue and humour. The heavy philosophical themes that cover the entire work are also explored in a way that avoids being too dense to parse and I think succeed in communicating their points well.
  Alice in wonderland is definitely a well tread concept but I believe Vora achieved a fantastic new spin on the trope, the world she created for it being very alien to anything else i have read.
  I am so very excited to see what Vora does next and I hope she keeps sharing her stories with us.
  Also I think everyone in this story should get a hug please and thank you