I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I’ve not read a Peter Pan retelling before and my knowledge of the original is limited to the Disney movie version. So I figured I would give this one a chance. It started off fairly boring to be honest. Beautifully written, but very dull. Wendy was kind of bland and uninteresting, Michael the five year old was cute, and John the other brother was a complete ass. Wendy is a 16 year old girl who’s supposed to be getting ready for a profitable match for her family, but she’s secretly in love with the bookseller’s son, Booth. Who adores her. Wendy is torn because her society status will not accept a lady of her standing to be with the bookseller’s son. Even though he’s sweet, charming and really does truly seem to care for her.

 

Wendy is crushed when her father confirms her fears, and hints if she doesn’t cut off her feelings for Booth, then she may be shipped off to boarding school. Her brothers don’t help much, and John is dick when he finds a love note Booth has written Wendy. But next thing you know, the enigmatic Peter Pan has appeared and charmed them all with tales of Neverland, flying and the promise of thrills and adventure and that he can have them all escape for the night and be home before their parents even realise that the children are gone.

 

So off they go on an exciting adventure. Wendy is kind of nervous, but goes along with the flow. It’s all meandering along nicely, there’s a great sense of wonder as Wendy and her brothers experience the thrills and nerves of flying and arriving in Neverland. There’s a captivating sense of beauty in actually arriving in the magic of Neverland, the beautiful seas, the beautiful but disturbingly deadly mermaids. The sense of adventure and no rules and grownups around to tell anyone what do.

 

Wendy though, appears to be struggling greatly with the sense of keeping to the manners she has been brought up with. However, arriving on Pan Island with Peter and meeting the Lost Boys – it’s clear being a well-mannered girl is something of a problem. These boys haven’t seen a girl in years and Wendy is something of an anomaly. She’s treated with suspicion and the boys are constantly poking and prodding her.  Until Peter tells them to leave her alone and show her some respect.

 

As dull as she is, though you have to give it to Wendy Darling – she must have the patience of a saint to put up with the appalling manners of the Lost Boys. They are just not used to having a girl around. And the only other female form – is Tink, the last fairy. Who hates Wendy. I almost find myself sympathising with Tink a lot – what is it about Wendy that’s so special, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about her at all (other than her manners and endless patience) it’s really hard to fathom out what it is that Peter sees in her.

 

Wendy shows remarkable tolerance and tries to befriend Tink in spite of Tink’s nastiness and threats and acts of violence against her. The boys come to enjoy her company and Wendy tries to get into the swing of things – eating with them and sitting with them, climbing around the trees and walking the dangerous rope bridges. Peter Pan himself is sassy and eloquent, just has a presence that commands attention and holds your intrigue and respect. He’s full of great stories and all the Lost Boys want his special attention and favour. He makes everyone feel welcome and part of the fun.

 

As soon as the Darling siblings arrive and have been welcomed, Peter tells a story of daring deeds with the notorious Captain Hook and decides they need a raid to steal booze from the pirates to have a proper welcome feast for Wendy and her brothers. John’s smarts get him made a General in the Lost Boys and have a big part in the raid. Wendy is terribly worried for him. John dismisses her and is very cruel to her.

 

For the most part, the novel up to this point has been fairly bland, as I mentioned very well written, though I failed to see why it was marketed for a YA audience, and thought I could easily see reading this to group of younger children – it’s fun, kids would get a kick out of the excitement of the Lost Boys and the thrill of adventure and those looking for romance would enjoy the budding thrill between Peter and Wendy.

 

Once the pirate raid happens, things quickly took a much darker turn than I anticipated.  It goes very wrong very quickly and ends in terrible violence. It’s not all fun and games anymore and there are some serious issues with Peter’s greed when everything starts falling apart. Wendy is naturally very worried and shocked about what happens. Though Peter’s so charming he can talk his way round pretty much anything. And starts heating up the romance angle again. Which pretty much makes Wendy swoony.

 

Though thanks to Wendy’s latest encounter with Tink, she starts to realise there are very important things she’s forgetting. This is when things get darker still. Neverland is looking so fun anymore. At least not to Wendy as she starts to remember their parents and their lives in London. And also begins to be concerned about whether or not they will ever get home.

 

Peter’s pushing the romance angle in a way that started off as quite – well – romantic, but when Wendy can’t go through with taking things to another level he gets very jealous and very very angry.  He acts like a spoiled brat – he’s pushy, cruel and actually threatening. It’s shocking and disturbing by this point. Wendy wants to home. John won’t listen – he’s crueller than ever. Michael’s quite agreeable to go with Wendy. Wendy wants her family together. She’s torn.

(spoiler show)

 

By the end of the novel, Wendy shows incredible strength as she fights to get herself and Michael to safety, away from Peter who’s shown a much more frightening side than she ever realised. It’s life or death to escape and Wendy realises she will do whatever it takes to get home. John for now seems like a lost cause, but her priority becomes getting Michael away from the Lost Boys and safe. The last twenty percent or so is absolutely gripping and quite scary.

 

And left at one brilliant cliff-hanger. I really can not wait for the next book.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and SparksPress for approving my request to view this title.

I can never resist books that are in any way connected to Peter Pan, I’m just fascinated by Neverland and what it represents. So when I was offered the chance to review Wendy Darling, I couldn’t say yes fast enough!

 

Wendy Darling is a re-telling of Peter Pan told from 16 year old Wendy’s perspective. John is Mr Darling’s favourite child and Wendy feels desperate to be noticed by her father, she tries so hard to see the star that John can see so easily but she struggles and the disappointment she feels from her father is palpable.

 

Wendy spends as much time as she can visiting the local bookshop. She loves to read, but even more than that she loves to visit the bookseller’s son Booth. The two are growing closer but their romance seems to be doomed from the start as society dictates that Booth is just not an appropriate suitor so they meet in secret.

 

One night Mr and Mrs Darling go out for the evening and something very strange happens at the house. It is really quite sinister and leaves the children feeling very shaken, until Peter Pan appears at the window and takes them all off on an adventure.

I have to be honest and say I found some of the things that happened in Neverland a little long-winded and slow, I was initially more captivated by Wendy’s romance with Booth and was longing to see more of that, I didn’t want to be taken away from that storyline. Having said that, where the book keeps you hooked is with this much more overtly sinister version of Neverland. It was always possible to see the darkness in JM Barrie’s original story but it’s much more extreme in Oakes’ re-telling. Oakes takes the nightmarish elements to fantastic extremes and danger is everywhere, especially for Wendy. It’s about how nothing is as it seems, and the idealism of a perfect world is never going to be as you’d thought.

 

Peter Pan has always felt a little creepy to me but in this version he is sociopathic. He appears very loving and kind one minute and the next his personality becomes very menacing, and actually often downright evil. I loved that Wendy was older in this re-telling as it gives a whole new dynamic to her and Peter’s relationship. There is an undeniable sexual chemistry from the beginning of the book, Wendy is drawn to him and cannot stop herself from staring at him and wanting to be closer to him. Peter ultimately uses this against her though and there are a couple of scenes later in the book that are very shocking and disturbing. The contrast between the rather innocent kissing with Booth and the way that Peter Pan treats Wendy really highlights the way that Neverland represents the desires of a teenage girl and her inability to fully comprehend how dangerous the world can be for someone still so naive and innocent.

 

Wendy Darling is ultimately the story of an awakening, it’s about Wendy discovering her power as a young woman and how she can fight back against the things that imprison her. It’s about her discovering her longing to be a mother; the way Wendy takes to nurturing the lost boys is beautiful, she seems to have found her place with them and they adoringly look up to her wanting her to be their mother. I did very much appreciate how empowered Wendy is in this re-telling; she’s been taken from a character who is almost always portrayed as weak just because she’s just a girl to a young woman who can stand her ground, and who will speak up when she feels she needs to. It was fascinating to see the character of Wendy in this way.

 

I do have a real bugbear with this book though and that is that even when a book is a part of a series I strongly feel that each book in the series should have some sort of ending. I know they have to lead into the next book so you will want to buy it but this novel just stops and ends with the title of the next book. I have to be honest and say that this really irritated me and I’m not sure that I would read the next one because I would always be wondering if I was ever going to get an ending. I love open endings, I enjoy being left with lots to think about but to just stop dead at the end of a scene and announce the next book is actually infuriating.

 

There are aspects of this novel that are fascinating and compelling, but there are times when it falls a little flat and the lack of an ending is something I can’t ignore so I rate this novel 7 out of 10. I still highly recommend it, especially to people who are fascinated by Peter Pan, it’s a brilliant look at his character and it takes him to really sinister levels that always seem to be underlying his character in the original story.

 

I received this book from SparkPress in exchange for an honest review.

 

Wendy Darling is out now and available from Amazon.

 

This review was originally posted on my blog: RatherTooFondofbooks

 

I have been a Fan of Peter Pan since I first watched the Disney movie. When I saw this book come out I was excited to see how a more mature story telling would turn out. I have to say I was not disappointed.

The story begins with the Darlings and brings you into their home and dynamics of their family. Introducing the members we remember such as the children and Nana along with some new characters such as Booth. Oakes weaves a magical scene that is Neverland and Peter Pan. Yet Oakes takes the story to a much more mature place and touches on more adult themes. I enjoyed getting to know the characters in a a more adult context.

What did shock me was how Peter evolved through the book. Through different relationships that Wendy observed and participated in gave a full view of who Peter really is. The relationship that Peter had with Tink surprised me the most. I had always wondered how they met and why she was so jealous of Wendy when i was a child. Although it is not fully explained Oakes does do a great job on showing the dark side of how a relationship can turn dark.

I only hope that in the future books Wendy develops more and as Booth tells her to be Brave. I cant wait for the next one!

This is a pretty dark version of Peter Pan, and I loved that about it.

 

I have heard tell that originally, Peter himself was supposed to be the villain of the piece, and the entire premise of the original novel, with someone coming to the window and taking children away to a land full of some seriously dangerous stuff, is actually a lot creepier as an adult than it seemed as a child. This novel capitalizes on that creepiness and turns it up to eleven.

 

I'm a sucker for re-tellings of stories. I came into it through Arthurian legend and stuck around through fairy tales and fanfiction and everything under the sun, because I love having a new viewpoint on familiar ideas. Watching how things are going to be twisted away from the original and then back again brings me great joy, and that is one of the levels on which I enjoyed this novel.

 

The other primary level was as a piece of dark fantasy. This is not Disney's Neverland. It's not even really J.M. Barrie's. It is a dark and primal place, part Lord of the Flies, even, and full of magic and things to discover. The discoveries are rarely good things in the end.

 

Playing up the entire idea of the Lost Boys was a brilliant idea, and it worked to make the book eerie on several levels. They are lost, both because they have lost their homes and identities and because they have lost their humanity, almost; they are not working towards growing up, as most children are, but almost away from the idea, or at least taking "growing up" down a darker route than most do.

 

The concept that something has happened to Neverland peeks its head out just often enough to remind you that there is something stranger going on through here, but the characters really get center stage throughout. It is not strictly a character study--there is certainly a plot, and quite a bit of adventure--but sorting out how the characters interact and the motives of each seems to be the main point of this particular arc in Wendy's story.

 

Because this is Wendy's story. Peter Pan certainly co-stars, and his history will probably be explained further throughout the series, but Wendy is the primary focus here, especially in her relationships.

 

I don't want to suggest this is a love story. It is not. There are some elements of that here, but her relationship with her brothers and even her parents are just as important, if not more so, than her relationships with any potential love interests.

 

Wendy herself is easy to root for--she is more self-aware than a lot of YA heroines, and even her moments of slipping are easily explained through plot mechanisms or just plain the fact that she is young and scared. She develops a bit more of a backbone throughout the novel, but she does not start as a shrinking violet, and it is nice to see that her care for Michael and the other boys is not undervalued or depreciated in any way--it is a part of her character, and a solid part, but not all of it, and not even all she is valued for. She is more than just a nursemaid and motherly character, as she often seems to end up.

 

As a heads up, the ending is a bit dangling. There's a clear enough stopping point to the story arc that it didn't feel completely out of the blue, but this is very clearly the beginning of a series (and I must admit I didn't realize that going in), so you will have a bunch of unanswered questions at the end. I'm excited about picking up the next one, though; seeing where this goes should be quite fun.

 

This book was provided to me for free by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Most people probably know the Peter Pan story whether or not they have read the book. He is such a famous figure and there are a couple of movies out there. I read the book in my teens so my memory of the book is, well not that good, but I have seen movies so I think I know the story quite well.

I must admit that the cover was one of the reasons for that made me request the book that and it seemed to be a much darker story. I was a bit wary about it being YA since I really don't like reading YA that much, but it turned out that this story was a bit darker than I expect from YA books. But it could be that I just haven't read the right YA books.

This retelling is truly darker than the original story. The Lost boys and Peter Pan and their adventures with the pirates are much more lethal. Here, we have boys that really fight pirates that stab them with swords, etc. and Peter Pan is really adapt to killing pirates. And, the pirates kill Lost boys as well. I mean one of the Lost Boys gets his throat cut. 

I was a bit annoyed with John, Wendy's brother. He was just awfully rude and spiteful throughout the book towards Wendy. I just didn't like him very much, but Wendy's little brother Michael was sweet. Then, there is Peter Pan. He is still very much full of himself and frankly not a very nice person. Since this is a YA is Wendy's relationship with Peter Pan a bit more mature. Well no sex, but much more kissing and stuff. 

But I had some problem connecting with the story. It was good, I liked the retelling and I liked the darker tone. I just really didn't fully enjoy the book. It felt that something was missing. I have a suspicious feeling that the next book in this series will be better since one very special person didn't make an appearance until the very last minute.  And, that makes me eager to read the next book since I think that person's present will make the story more intriguing.

 

Thanks to SparkPress and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!