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Reviews tagging 'Blood'
Die Chroniken von Peter Pan - Albtraum im Nimmerland by Christina Henry
81 reviews
morganish's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Full disclosure, I was in a rush and needed to read this for a book club, and could only get it on audiobook, so... 1. There might not be things I remember as clearly as if I was just reading. But 2. This was my first audiobook since... middle school!? Just, a really long time. I kind of just want to download all my thoughts about becoming a recent audiobook convert here instead of a review, but I'll do my best to focus on the actual book instead.
Lost Boy is a Peter Pan prequel from Hook's perspective, where Peter Pan is a monstrous, manipulative sociopath. It's a really fantastic metaphor for how abuse, especially abuse of minors, works psychologically by pitting victims against each other, explored in a variety of ways that absolutely pull no punches. If you can hang with that kind of content, I can't really recommend it highly enough, and definitely sets this book at least at 4 stars for me.
But as deeply entrenched as I was in the narrative, there's a particular plot direction somewhere vaguely in the middle of the book that really, really didn't work for me. From a queer lens in specific, it felt like a bit of an oversight how it's handled, though I'm not sure straight/cis readers will notice or think much of it. It soured a lot of the rest of the story in overall enjoyability for me personally. And then, ultimately, the ending felt like it was trying to wrap up and intersect with the canonical version of Peter Pan. This focus on intersection felt like it undermined the story's powerful themes, trying to hit a checklist of events instead of giving Lost Boy the emotional/psychological ending it deserved. For me, these two negative aspects stood out enough to take what was initially a really gripping story and put it in the category of enjoyable for the moment, but not making it into a new favorite.
If you like retellings or tie-in stories about classic children's tales, especially if they shed a new, more adult, darker light on the original, you should seriously consider picking this up. From what I've seen so far, it succeeds at this more than any other retelling I've encountered. However if you're triggered by stories that realistically explore how abuse works, I definitely would advise proceeding with caution. And I'd also say if you have no tolerance for stories that don't consider/make space for queer interpretations of certain kinds of plot devices or storylines, this might not be the story for you.
Lost Boy is a Peter Pan prequel from Hook's perspective, where Peter Pan is a monstrous, manipulative sociopath. It's a really fantastic metaphor for how abuse, especially abuse of minors, works psychologically by pitting victims against each other, explored in a variety of ways that absolutely pull no punches. If you can hang with that kind of content, I can't really recommend it highly enough, and definitely sets this book at least at 4 stars for me.
But as deeply entrenched as I was in the narrative, there's a particular plot direction somewhere vaguely in the middle of the book that really, really didn't work for me. From a queer lens in specific, it felt like a bit of an oversight how it's handled, though I'm not sure straight/cis readers will notice or think much of it. It soured a lot of the rest of the story in overall enjoyability for me personally. And then, ultimately, the ending felt like it was trying to wrap up and intersect with the canonical version of Peter Pan. This focus on intersection felt like it undermined the story's powerful themes, trying to hit a checklist of events instead of giving Lost Boy the emotional/psychological ending it deserved. For me, these two negative aspects stood out enough to take what was initially a really gripping story and put it in the category of enjoyable for the moment, but not making it into a new favorite.
If you like retellings or tie-in stories about classic children's tales, especially if they shed a new, more adult, darker light on the original, you should seriously consider picking this up. From what I've seen so far, it succeeds at this more than any other retelling I've encountered. However if you're triggered by stories that realistically explore how abuse works, I definitely would advise proceeding with caution. And I'd also say if you have no tolerance for stories that don't consider/make space for queer interpretations of certain kinds of plot devices or storylines, this might not be the story for you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Kidnapping, Grief, and War
Minor: Xenophobia, Death of parent, and Abandonment
Additional content warnings: *lilly_anne's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Toxic friendship
haileyzim1234's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Blood, and Grief
Minor: Sexual assault
grisgrisgris's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, Murder, and Abandonment
Moderate: Child abuse, Misogyny, and Toxic friendship
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
LOST BOY is a nuanced and grief-filled portrayal of gaslighting, death, loss, and manipulation where it becomes unmistakably clear that Peter is the villain.
This shines both as a retelling and as an original story. Peter Pan is an interesting starting point for retellings because he and his story (at minimum) offer opportunities to either play up the wonder of childhood and the adventure offered by the island or to explore the darkness in having a place filled with fear and violence but little protection which generally requires magic to leave. This is unabashedly of the second ilk and there the story is the strongest. It's a book about kids slowly losing their innocence and breaking more and more until the grief and disillusion force them to literally grow up as they stop believing in the person who promised to let them play forever. That promise carried within it poison, a threat from the beginning as "can" play forever twisted into "must", and every wave of glorious games brings with it pain and death. Play isn't play if you never get to stop, and games don't stay fun when there's always the same winner. I love Jamie as a narrator, his voice strikes just the right balance of sounding jaded with enough room to lose even more innocence before the story is through.
I have two major criticisms but neither of them were enough to make me dislike the book as a whole. The rest of this review will contain minor spoilers, but the spoiler-free version of my critique is twofold: Firstly, I think the way the loss of hands is handled changes the original (animal attack) backstory from one of misfortune to one of malice. It stinks of ableism in a way that makes me uneasy, but I don't have the perspective to know for sure if it's a problem or just kind of odd. Secondly, it misses the mark in its attempt at fulfilling the time-honored Peter Pan retelling tradition of playing with gender in interesting ways. The way it chose was jarring and ultimately boring.
Read LOST BOY for a story where growing up feels like breaking by inches, and everyone Jamie tries to protect becomes another way to hurt him.
The idea that the person who would eventually become Captain Hook first spent a very long time chopping off other people's hands at first was intriguing, it has a "what goes around comes around" feel to it. But what happens instead is that the combination of those mutilations and how sickness is treated by Peter it makes it clear that any kind of imperfection is not only not tolerated, but it makes the person boring to Peter and his boredom is deadly. It seems like on this aspect of abuse the book gets so close to saying something powerful and then just doesn't. The fact that when Jamie was cutting off the hands of every First Mate they then lost that title establishes the pirates as similarly intolerant of this particular physical weakness. Narratively this leaves room for something really great where Jamie is able to be Captain in the end even after losing his hand. However bound up in the idea of the villainous Captain Hook having only one hand is the ableist revulsion at the idea of someone with one hand. When given the opportunity to turn this premise on its head, LOST BOY instead accepts the loss of Jamie's hand as part of the process of Peter turning him into a monster for the future Lost Boys to revile. Ultimately I don't know where I land on this because the endpoint is known: it's a Peter Pan retelling and so Captain Hook is seen as a villain and has one hand. I just wish this said more along the way.
There's a lot of cool ways to explore concepts of gender in a Peter Pan story, especially one which has the title of "Lost Boy" so prominently displayed. To me, "actually one of the lost boys is a cis girl" wastes that potential space of exploration, especially when the reveal is based on physical characteristics. I'm torn between two reactions. On the one hand, Jamie's instant embrace of Sally's identity and accompanying pronouns has just enough tension between whether to call her "Sal" or "Sally" that it shows that internal struggle of adjusting to a friend's name change without making it about him. If she had told him her name and pronouns in confidence or something it could have been if not great, at least a lot better. The text makes it clear that she considers "Sally" to be her real name and was masquerading as a boy because she thought it would be safer (according to the text, she wasn't wrong, at least where non-Peter dangers are concerned). My problem with this portrayal is that the pronoun switch happens as soon as he glimpses her chest, whereupon he begins using "she" and "her" then asks her real name. It turns what could have been a cool moment into one that feels transphobic because its very framing and execution ignores all possibility of transness in a moment ripe for it. The book erases implicitly the possibility that Sal could have remained Sal to everyone, let alone other possible combinations of identity and revelation in an island that's supposed to only be for boys.
This shines both as a retelling and as an original story. Peter Pan is an interesting starting point for retellings because he and his story (at minimum) offer opportunities to either play up the wonder of childhood and the adventure offered by the island or to explore the darkness in having a place filled with fear and violence but little protection which generally requires magic to leave. This is unabashedly of the second ilk and there the story is the strongest. It's a book about kids slowly losing their innocence and breaking more and more until the grief and disillusion force them to literally grow up as they stop believing in the person who promised to let them play forever. That promise carried within it poison, a threat from the beginning as "can" play forever twisted into "must", and every wave of glorious games brings with it pain and death. Play isn't play if you never get to stop, and games don't stay fun when there's always the same winner. I love Jamie as a narrator, his voice strikes just the right balance of sounding jaded with enough room to lose even more innocence before the story is through.
I have two major criticisms but neither of them were enough to make me dislike the book as a whole. The rest of this review will contain minor spoilers, but the spoiler-free version of my critique is twofold: Firstly, I think the way the loss of hands is handled changes the original (animal attack) backstory from one of misfortune to one of malice. It stinks of ableism in a way that makes me uneasy, but I don't have the perspective to know for sure if it's a problem or just kind of odd. Secondly, it misses the mark in its attempt at fulfilling the time-honored Peter Pan retelling tradition of playing with gender in interesting ways. The way it chose was jarring and ultimately boring.
Read LOST BOY for a story where growing up feels like breaking by inches, and everyone Jamie tries to protect becomes another way to hurt him.
The idea that the person who would eventually become Captain Hook
There's a lot of cool ways to explore concepts of gender in a Peter Pan story, especially one which has the title of "Lost Boy" so prominently displayed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Ableism and Death of parent
Minor: Rape
CW for major character death (graphic).juliezantopoulos's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This was the dark Hook origin story/Peter Pan retelling that I didn't know I wanted but for sure did. I adore Peter Pan retellings (much more than the original) and this one was gory, and brutal, and heartbreaking. I loved it! I have yet to see a Peter Pan retelling that paints Peter in a positive light, and this one sure didn't. I loved the spin and even though the story itself was harrowing it spoke to trauma, loss, grief, and family. It didn't shy away from difficult topics, abuse, or violence, but that's the way life is sometimes. This one isn't for the faint of heart or those who want a retelling with faeries and lighthearted games...you won't find that here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Death of parent
amanda_t's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Very, VERY dark. As someone who absolutely loves the Peter Pan story, I was not a huge fan of this version of Peter for obvious reasons. But I can't deny that this book absolutely gripped me and pulled on my heartstrings and I couldn't put it down! I have my own ideas of Peter's character, and this was most certainly not it. But despite it being much more gruesome than I would like, the writing was really beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with Jamie. The lore about how the island works and the flying element just didn't feel right to me, but the writing of Jamie's character and the writing style itself was just phenomenal. If you love it when classic tales are twisted into dark, terrifying things, you would love this book. If, like me, you're a tad squeamish and you prefer your tales a little closer to the original, maybe pass. Honestly, it hurts me a little to think that some people may read this book, and now will always think of Peter Pan as a darker story than it was ever intended. ALSO absolutely look at the content warnings before reading!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Animal death and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Domestic abuse
panic_at_the_bookshelf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Sexual assault
chrissyssoul's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The book starts with Jamie (Hook) as a young boy. He is the first of Peter's lost boys and his best friend (if Peter can have friends).
However, Jamie soon (well soon after the book begins) starts to realize Peter's idea of "fun" may not be what it seems.
Peter is a dark version of what it would be like to truly be a child forever. He has just enough life experience and intellectual development to know how and why to do things, but has not grown enough emotionally to care what the repercussions are for his actions (or he is just a sociopath).
"All children, but one, grow up." - J.M. Barrie
However, Jamie soon (well soon after the book begins) starts to realize Peter's idea of "fun" may not be what it seems.
Peter is a dark version of what it would be like to truly be a child forever. He has just enough life experience and intellectual development to know how and why to do things, but has not grown enough emotionally to care what the repercussions are for his actions (or he is just a sociopath).
"All children, but one, grow up." - J.M. Barrie
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Child death, Death, and Blood
Minor: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Grief
stayshomeandreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
fast-paced
2.5
US cover designers, why would you spoil the main twist of the book???
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Kidnapping