Mi è piaciuto molto. Mi aspettavo qualcosa di più fiabesco e colorato, pieno di risate e invece... è stata una lettura intensa ed emozionante in cui il magico mondo infantile si scontra con la cruda realtà fatta di abusi, morte, dolore e rimpianto ma anche di rinascita, accettazione di sé, redenzione e speranza. Ho adorato l'evoluzione di Uncino, un personaggio tutt'altro che banale e scontato, non il solito cattivone odioso e stronzo che si diverte ad uccidere bensì un uomo distrutto e stanco, alla ricerca di se stesso e della propria identità, un uomo da ormai troppi anni prigioniero di quella paradisiaca isola diventata ormai un inferno. Unica piccola pecca che mi ha spinto ad abbassare la valutazione è lo sviluppo di Peter/Wendy... essendo il protagonista mi sarei aspettata di empatizzare maggiormente con lui invece per metà libro si comporta come un bambino pensando solo alle proprie ripicche personali e arrivando a far scoppiare una guerra uccidendo innocenti, solo a fine libro acquista un po' di senno rimanendo comunque troppo infantile se paragonato al compagno di avventure/disavventure. Vista la sua condizione e lotta interiore per accettare la sua sessualità e il suo essere uomo intrappolato nel corpo di una donna avrei voluto vedere un Peter più deciso e maturo dopo aver lottato per ciò in cui crede e invece... anche a fine libro rimane immaturo e... scontato. Meravigliosa ed originale l'idea di rendere l'isola che non c'è non un luogo idilliaco di pace e tranquillità in cui sfuggire dai problemi e dolori bensì una vera e propria prigione in cui illudersi di poter essere liberi perdendo però la propria identità ed umanità. Un romanzo sicuramente originale e che mi sento di consigliare ai fan di Peter Pan e a quelli che cercano una storia commovente e intensa per contenuti ed emozioni.

Kieran heads to his new internship at Heidi Norton's campaign office feeling nervous but hopeful. He's been told it's a trans-friendly workplace, and Marcus, the person who arranged his internship, is also a former professor of his, so he figures he'd have the benefit of knowing at least one person there. Unfortunately, he's almost immediately misgendered by one of his new coworkers, who seems confused and uncomfortable when he corrects her. Then he discovers that Marcus isn't there yet and he's going to have to deal with Seth, who immediately strikes him as stiff and intimidating. And also disconcertingly hot.

As Kieran gets used to his new internship, he learns that Seth isn't quite as intimidating as he first appeared, in part because Seth clearly has a major secret crush on Marcus, who is, unfortunately for Seth, both heterosexual and very happily married. To make matters worse, Kieran finds himself developing an awkward crush of his own on Seth.

Chant's Peter Darling was decent but not quite my cup of tea. I was looking forward to Coffee Boy, which I'd heard was a sweet contemporary romance. For the most part, I enjoyed it more than Peter Darling, although I flinched when I started it and realized it was written in present tense, with some verb tense choices in the first couple paragraphs that had me wondering if I was going to spend the whole story encountering odd inconsistencies. Thankfully, the writing smoothed out after that first jarring bit, and I eventually adjusted to Chant's verb tense choice and could even sort of see why he chose it, even though I wasn't a fan of it.

The first half of this story, in particular, made for difficult reading. Lots of instances of Kieran dealing with misgendering, as people saw his long hair and heard his "mean cheerleader" voice and assumed he was a woman. Marcus patted himself on the back for being a good trans ally by hiring Kieran, not seeing that there were additional issues that needed to be addressed. Seth was better, but his habit of snapping at anyone who misgendered Kieran made things worse in some ways, as people began treating Kieran like some kind of workplace ghost or bent over backwards in order to avoid using any pronouns at all when referring to him.

I liked seeing Kieran and Seth gradually relax and get to know each other. Seth was adorable, and I kept having a mental image of Kieran as a puppy nipping at Seth to try and get him to unbend and play around a little. As much as I loved the part when they were finally honest about how they felt about each other, I wish there'd been an epilogue showing them a few months later, after they'd been a couple for a while.

There was a ten-year age difference between them that had a noticeable effect on their lifestyles - Kieran was more comfortable going out to bars, drinking, and dancing than Seth, while Seth was much more financially stable and had a better handle on his life, at least in terms of his career (as far as his romantic life went, he used to be married - he and his wife divorced a while back, although not because he was bisexual). When Kieran and Seth finally admitted to each themselves and to each other how they felt, the age difference was brought up a little, as was the difference in their workplace status (Seth wasn't Kieran's direct supervisor, but he was still in a more powerful and influential position). Both of those things bothered Seth a bit more than they did Kieran, and both were brushed off fairly quickly.

I'm not sure I'd call this a fluffy romance considering how exhausting some of the stuff in the first half was, but it still had some nice sweet moments. I look forward to seeing Chant's future works.

I'll wrap this up with a comment about Coffee Boy's publisher, NineStar Press. This was my first exposure to them and their website has some features that mean I'll be reading more of their publications: they have "category" tags for gender (nonbinary, trans, cisgender), orientation (aromantic, asexual, bisexual, demisexual, gay, lesbian, pansexual), pairing (FF, MM, MMM, MMF, menage), and sex content (N/A, non-explicit, explicit). I particularly appreciated the orientation and sex content tags, as well as the "type" tags (romance, erotica, literary). I've now read one other work besides Coffee Boy published by NineStar Press and consider their tagging to be accurate.

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

Ten years ago, Peter left Neverland behind in order to go back to his family, who he hoped would finally accept him as he was. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as well as he'd hoped, and in the book's present he's gone back to Neverland.

Peter seems to think that he can slide back into his old life in Neverland without any trouble, but things have changed since he left. The Lost Boys have a new leader and have become much more peaceful in Peter's absence, and Peter's efforts to "play war" now have more horrible and deadly consequences. The one person in Neverland who seems to genuinely like that Peter is back and shaking things up is his old nemesis, Hook.

I'm not really a Peter Pan fan, but I do like portal fantasies, and the enemies-to-lovers aspect intrigued me. I maybe should have paid more attention to the book's description, though, because the first half of the book had a lot more violence and bloodshed than I was expecting. Although it wasn't hard to guess the root of Peter's need to "play war" even over the Lost Boys' objections, I got frustrated with Peter and found myself wishing that someone (like Tinkerbell) would tell him to quit it before people got killed.

The second half of the book worked better for me. I enjoyed learning more about Neverland, although those revelations never completely took the sting out of the results of the big battle between Peter and the Lost Boys and Hook and his pirates. The progression of Peter and Hook/James from enemies to lovers was still very nice, and I really liked how things worked out in the end.

Since the review that put this on my radar mentioned Every Heart a Doorway, I couldn't help but think of that book too. I very much preferred the way Peter Darling's Neverland was set up as opposed to the fantasy worlds in Every Heart a Doorway, if only because I still dislike how things turned out for Kade in his world.

All in all, this wasn't entirely my cup of tea, but I'm now looking forward to reading Chant's Coffee Boy even more.

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

I'll probably be giving this 3.5 stars. I liked the second half a lot more than the first. I understand why Peter acted the way he did in the first half, but it made for difficult reading, and I really just wanted Tinkerbell or somebody to tell Peter to back off and maybe try playing something other than "war" for a bit.

Nobody's having much fun anymore, not even Hook. There is a lot more death in this than I expected.