Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Genre: YA Fairy Tale Retelling
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: July 3, 2012
Hardcover: 292 Pages
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
How did I get this book: Library
Format: Hardcover
Why did I read this book: I have been dying for a Peter Pan retelling that I actually enjoyed. I have read 3 others and disliked all of them. So I picked this up to give Peter Pan retellings one more shot!
Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.
Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.
With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.
“To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.”
Review
Peter is just so Peter in this book. If you read the original He isn't always the hero he is selfish, moody, and childish, and like any other pubescent boy he has a crush on all the girls, but, he also has his soft and fun side. I really enjoyed how dark this book got at times Peter hangs a pirate at one point there and a moment where the author alludes to a rape.
Some of the most powerful moments in this book revolves around Tick Tok who is Tiger Lily's adoptive father. He is gender fluid, he is loved, respected and revered by the rest of the tribe until a European is shipwrecked and saved by the tribe and poisons the minds of the village and turns them against Tick Tok and making him out to be sick and confused. I love Tick Toks character so much his story arc was breathtaking!
The writing of this novel was magnificent. Jodi Lynn Anderson has a way of communicating feelings and actions so simple, but with an undertone of deep meaning. The words and writing style is still with me over a week later I cannot get over it! If you are a fan of love triangles done right this is definitely for you. I may even call this a love web, there are a lot of feelings going on in wonderland but it is executed perfectly. You sympathize with Tiger Lily as she is betrothed to an awful man and with Tinkerbell when she longs for someone she cannot even communicate with!