Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Wendy, Darling

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

_annabanana_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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thebooksanctum's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A brilliant take on Peter Pan, I loved how creepy the whole thing felt, and the twist around the original tale! Wendy was a badass of a character, and I loved seeing her daughter's POV too!
I'm not entirely sure I understood what Peter was in the end, but such a good book!

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epellicci's review

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adventurous dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

Unfortunately, I couldn't get along with Wendy. I found her very meek, her constant two-ing and fro-ing on Peter, her relationships with everyone in her family except Mary, and the repetitiveness of this process left me feeling very uninvested. The Victorian setting and the asylum was a massive missed opportunity to make the whole book much more sinister, and I found Wendy's eventual return to Neverland quite rushed after so much build up.

It was ultimately quite an easy read, but the familiarity of the original tale is what I think kept me going to the end.

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vi_holmes's review

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Recently, I have fallen down the rabbit hole of fairytale retellings and recently picked up Hook at a shop not knowing it was a prequel/sequel. I quickly ordered this one and boy I was not disappointed!

Wise takes the story of the boy who refuses to grow up and found all the places to fill in and add lore and context in the most brilliant fashion!

The story bounces between the view points of Wendy and her daughter, Jane, who has been stolen by Peter from her room believing her to be Wendy. Demanding her to be. Wendy must venture to Neverland to rescue her daughter while battling the PTSD she suffers from her time in Neverland and more so from the aftermath of it.

Wise does an amazing job of depicting Wendy as a feminine heroine, battling mental illness while not letting that illness make her weaker for it, but rather more determined to protect Jane from the same fate. And bring an end to Peter's evil ways.

<spoilers below>

The scenery of the story is beautifully depicted, I felt captivated by the magical and dark world reimagined in this book. And there are so many amazing characters with so much depth, you will certainly fall in love with many, especially Mary and Ned!

I will say that there were parts that felt very slow to get to. However, I very much get the impression that this was intentional. It added so much suspense to the scariest and most mysterious bits of the story and honestly made it so thrilling when the pace suddenly picked up towards the end of the second act.

Also have to mention the LGBTQIA+ representation cause it is so amazing! I was struggling not to cry during those reveal scenes.

Definitely read all the trigger warnings that come with Wendy, Darling -- it is truly very dark and disturbing at times -- but I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys dark fairytale retellings!

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mcmurdoc97's review

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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chaptersofamylea's review

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DNF @ page 97

While I like the idea of this book and how it was imagined, I just couldn’t gel with the writing style. There was nothing gripping about it and I’ll be honest and say that I’m genuinely gutted about it as I had high hopes for this.

TWs up until this point: death of a parent, kidnapping, non-consensual hospitalisation, abuse, ref to PTSD

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niamhbereading's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

oh my gosh............ damn........ what a book

this book alternates between three stories: wendy's search for her daughter jane, jane in neverland, & the aftermath of wendy's life post her first visit to neverland as a child. wise does a really good job of balancing these stories because they all feed into each other: what we learn from one story informs the others. this made the book an absolute page-turner, because every new exciting revelation made me want to keep reading to see where it would lead the story, which would lead me to another revelation, etc etc. the stories also add layers to the characters & their relationships, making the overall story dynamic and unique.

peter is so interesting omg....... he becomes more & more evil w/ every page & it is both horrifying & exhilarating! horrifying bc this cherished fictional children's character is suddenly dangerously magical in ways his original story never explored, & exhilarating because damn wise knows how to write a villian!! his character gets more twisted & more captivating w/ every page. it's hard to reimagine a children's character like that, but wise does it phenomonally.

this book is set between the late 1910s & 1920 to 1930, & wise has done a very good job immersing the reader into that era. wendy's brother michael faught in ww1 (though it's never actually called ww1) and the politics of the time (gender roles & mental health care) are present. wise clearly knows her stuff.

i just couldn't get enough of this book. a very enjoyable read despite how insanely dark it is. i can't wait to see what wise writes in the future <3 i would recommend this book to enjoyers of old story retellings, for this is a perfect example of the form

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