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eed8's review
adventurous
emotional
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
Okay, I'll be honest: as far as Peter Pan retellings go, this was a mixed bag. There were a lot of really amazing ideas in terms of Neverland's hidden darkness (the revelation about how Peter manipulates the memories and behaviors of the Lost Boys was MESSED UP), and Wise did a really nice job of showing the consequences of what happens when Peter gets bored of something rather than simply saying "he lost interest so these creatures died a horrible death by starvation". mYet for all of these intriguing dark ideas that toed the edge of outright horror, I didn't feel overtly connected to the Neverland sequences. Part of me feels like Wise wasn't completely sure what to do with the story between Jane's kidnapping and Wendy's guaranteed reunion with her in Neverland, so the plot was too rambly for my liking during the "present."
I would have definitely liked to have had more insight into Wendy's bond with Jane. There's no question that she loved her daughter more than anyone else and would have torched the earth to get her back safely, but I really couldn't get a read on their actual relationship beyond "you're my child/mother and I love you." I can chalk this up to them being so different (equally delightful, but very different), but it was odd to see Wendy pivot from being so ambivalent about marriage/motherhood as a social construct to agreeing to have a child in the first place.
But - I read in an interview with Wise that she was most interested in the "what comes after" part for the Alices and Wendys of the literary world, and it absolutely shows. Though I felt like Wendy's experience in the asylum was a bit tame compared to what we know about turn-of-the-century mental institutions, her agony over being gaslit by everyone she knew was palpable, particularly when juxtaposed with her brother's PTSD from the trenches, and there was some interesting exploration in the differing ways that Wendy and Michael were treated for their mental health issues. The Darling family dynamic was seriously fascinating, and I especially ADORED how Wise turned Wendy's maiden name on its head to be coddling and childish. I figured from the title that this would be a bit cloying, but it really, really worked.
Now, on to my favorite part of this book: I loved, loved, LOVED the representation here. 100% did not expect to find this sort of representation in a fairy tale retelling. The criticism - subtle and not-so-subtle - of the treatment of Indigenous peoples both in the real world and in Neverland was astonishing. We had two fully developed Indigenous women in this story: Mary White Dog, Wendy's gal pal (more on that in a second), who was taken from her Canadian tribe by her white stepfamily as a child and clearly wrestles with her identity after spending a lifetime away from her people, and Tiger Lily, the Indian Princess from the original story whose quiet rage at being willfully forgotten/left for dead by Peter as the last survivor of the Neverland Indians flies off the page. Wendy's horrified ruminations on the similarities between Mary and Tiger Lily - namely the eradication of their respective cultures, and the meaning of Tiger Lily's existence as a stereotype invented by a spoiled little boy - was shocking in its frank timeliness. Wendy may have been the clever tailor who saved Neverland from the monster at its core, but it's clearly Mary and Tiger Lily who are responsible for this.
Finally, ALL of the kudos to Wise for so lovingly and authentically giving us an aro/ace Wendy, who clearly loves her husband as a friend and partner but EXPLICITLY does not feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone. The closest she comes to such feelings is in the form of her relationship with Mary - and this is discussed! Explicitly discussed! There's not even a trace of the usual "Wendy-had-a-crush-on-Peter-in-Neverland" scenario. Wendy agrees to become a beard for her husband (who is gay! Cue a really fascinating exploration of the ways that he and Wendy are both forced to repress core parts of their histories/identities to be more palatable for their families and society at large!) and he's totally down with having Mary live under their roof as an unusually close friend of his wife's. This is a poly-queerplatonic household. WENDY DARLING IS QUEER, y'all, and it's BEAUTIFUL.
So yeah. The actual Neverland parts of the book? Below average. Everything else, which is really the heart of this book? Exquisite.
I would have definitely liked to have had more insight into Wendy's bond with Jane. There's no question that she loved her daughter more than anyone else and would have torched the earth to get her back safely, but I really couldn't get a read on their actual relationship beyond "you're my child/mother and I love you." I can chalk this up to them being so different (equally delightful, but very different), but it was odd to see Wendy pivot from being so ambivalent about marriage/motherhood as a social construct to agreeing to have a child in the first place.
But - I read in an interview with Wise that she was most interested in the "what comes after" part for the Alices and Wendys of the literary world, and it absolutely shows. Though I felt like Wendy's experience in the asylum was a bit tame compared to what we know about turn-of-the-century mental institutions, her agony over being gaslit by everyone she knew was palpable, particularly when juxtaposed with her brother's PTSD from the trenches, and there was some interesting exploration in the differing ways that Wendy and Michael were treated for their mental health issues. The Darling family dynamic was seriously fascinating, and I especially ADORED how Wise turned Wendy's maiden name on its head to be coddling and childish. I figured from the title that this would be a bit cloying, but it really, really worked.
Now, on to my favorite part of this book: I loved, loved, LOVED the representation here. 100% did not expect to find this sort of representation in a fairy tale retelling. The criticism - subtle and not-so-subtle - of the treatment of Indigenous peoples both in the real world and in Neverland was astonishing. We had two fully developed Indigenous women in this story: Mary White Dog, Wendy's gal pal (more on that in a second), who was taken from her Canadian tribe by her white stepfamily as a child and clearly wrestles with her identity after spending a lifetime away from her people, and Tiger Lily, the Indian Princess from the original story whose quiet rage at being willfully forgotten/left for dead by Peter as the last survivor of the Neverland Indians flies off the page. Wendy's horrified ruminations on the similarities between Mary and Tiger Lily - namely the eradication of their respective cultures, and the meaning of Tiger Lily's existence as a stereotype invented by a spoiled little boy - was shocking in its frank timeliness. Wendy may have been the clever tailor who saved Neverland from the monster at its core, but it's clearly Mary and Tiger Lily who are responsible for this.
Finally, ALL of the kudos to Wise for so lovingly and authentically giving us an aro/ace Wendy, who clearly loves her husband as a friend and partner but EXPLICITLY does not feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone. The closest she comes to such feelings is in the form of her relationship with Mary - and this is discussed! Explicitly discussed! There's not even a trace of the usual "Wendy-had-a-crush-on-Peter-in-Neverland" scenario. Wendy agrees to become a beard for her husband (who is gay! Cue a really fascinating exploration of the ways that he and Wendy are both forced to repress core parts of their histories/identities to be more palatable for their families and society at large!) and he's totally down with having Mary live under their roof as an unusually close friend of his wife's. This is a poly-queerplatonic household. WENDY DARLING IS QUEER, y'all, and it's BEAUTIFUL.
So yeah. The actual Neverland parts of the book? Below average. Everything else, which is really the heart of this book? Exquisite.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization
Minor: Racism and Mental illness
anniereads221's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
I enjoyed this dark retelling of Peter Pan
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, Torture, and Toxic friendship
Minor: War
booksthatburn's review against another edition
reflective
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
4.0
WENDY, DARLING is a retelling which takes the original’s commentary on early 1900’s England’s sexist expectations for women and girls and leans into them, examining and contextualizing them rather than merely reproducing them.
It's tempting to dismiss this version of Wendy as passive, inactive. Not very many things actually happen in one sense, and she spends most of the book not doing things, or talking in circles around the things she did as a child in Neverland long ago. But that rumination, that early passivity is the point, and it forms a sharp contrast with the last quarter of the book where she leaves to rescue her daughter, Jane, stolen by Peter nearly as soon as the book begins. It's about the time stolen from her by sexism and institutionalization, the agency take from her by men who dismissed her as a girl then as a woman, and the way that Peter in his ageless boyhood is an echo and a concentration of the forces that twist every statement of Wendy's into a way she must have been female and therefore mistaken. Wendy doesn't do much in an action sense but she makes the most of every moment she can, talking with Mary as they sew secret pockets into their clothing, plotting ways to get back at her tormenters in the institution.
Jane's sections feel more robust than the flashbacks to Wendy's time in Neverland, but they're tied together to illustrate Peter's efforts to treat Jane as literally interchangeable with her mother, brought there to be his "mother". He needs her to protect him and make it all better, but to never stand up or point out that his treatment of the other boys (and everyone on the island) oscillates from active abuse to petulant neglect. Because of adult Wendy's thoughts about her daughter we have more context for what Peter is trying to strip away from Jane, it's easier to notice what he's removing.
The narrative treatment of Mary White Dog in England and Tiger Lily in Neverland attempts to address some of the harm of the original by grounding Indigenous people as real with specific tribes and origins, not just something from Peter's imagination, while also showing how harmful it was to Tiger Lily and the rest of her tribe to be trapped by his whims on the island, discarded when he grew wrathful or bored. There's a contrast drawn between Mary knowing the tribe she's from while having an awareness of how much knowledge she lost by being removed from her homeland, versus how little Tiger Lily can remember since she's trapped in Neverland. Tiger Lily doesn't remember any other name for her tribe. Given Peter's penchant for renaming people, it's probable that "Tiger Lily" isn't even her original name in this version, though it's all we get.
It's tempting to dismiss this version of Wendy as passive, inactive. Not very many things actually happen in one sense, and she spends most of the book not doing things, or talking in circles around the things she did as a child in Neverland long ago. But that rumination, that early passivity is the point, and it forms a sharp contrast with the last quarter of the book where she leaves to rescue her daughter, Jane, stolen by Peter nearly as soon as the book begins. It's about the time stolen from her by sexism and institutionalization, the agency take from her by men who dismissed her as a girl then as a woman, and the way that Peter in his ageless boyhood is an echo and a concentration of the forces that twist every statement of Wendy's into a way she must have been female and therefore mistaken. Wendy doesn't do much in an action sense but she makes the most of every moment she can, talking with Mary as they sew secret pockets into their clothing, plotting ways to get back at her tormenters in the institution.
Jane's sections feel more robust than the flashbacks to Wendy's time in Neverland, but they're tied together to illustrate Peter's efforts to treat Jane as literally interchangeable with her mother, brought there to be his "mother". He needs her to protect him and make it all better, but to never stand up or point out that his treatment of the other boys (and everyone on the island) oscillates from active abuse to petulant neglect. Because of adult Wendy's thoughts about her daughter we have more context for what Peter is trying to strip away from Jane, it's easier to notice what he's removing.
The narrative treatment of Mary White Dog in England and Tiger Lily in Neverland attempts to address some of the harm of the original by grounding Indigenous people as real with specific tribes and origins, not just something from Peter's imagination, while also showing how harmful it was to Tiger Lily and the rest of her tribe to be trapped by his whims on the island, discarded when he grew wrathful or bored. There's a contrast drawn between Mary knowing the tribe she's from while having an awareness of how much knowledge she lost by being removed from her homeland, versus how little Tiger Lily can remember since she's trapped in Neverland. Tiger Lily doesn't remember any other name for her tribe. Given Peter's penchant for renaming people, it's probable that "Tiger Lily" isn't even her original name in this version, though it's all we get.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Grief, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Toxic friendship, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Blood, Animal death, Child death, and Death
Minor: Torture and Death of parent
amz1006's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
I really enjoyed reading this book. I wasn’t intending to read it all in one sitting but I did anyway. I enjoyed the darker aspects of Neverland and how nothing is ever what it seems. It gave very much Lord of the Flies vibes.
I’m not really sure I would call this a feminist retelling like it was described, but there is certainly a level of intricacy to the women and their relationships in this book that often get left out of other books.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing. It took me a while to realize that what I didn’t really like was that it is written in the present tense and it threw me off a bit. Idk if maybe Wendy is just a really emotional person but the sheer amount of internal reflection that happened in this book was…a lot, especially for a book written in third person. I found myself skimming a lot of it tbh.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
CW for this book: graphic violence
The last thing I want to comment on was the torture scene of Wendy in the mental institution. It was hard to read and honestly it could’ve been left out. We could’ve just been told instead of shown yk.
I’m not really sure I would call this a feminist retelling like it was described, but there is certainly a level of intricacy to the women and their relationships in this book that often get left out of other books.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing. It took me a while to realize that what I didn’t really like was that it is written in the present tense and it threw me off a bit. Idk if maybe Wendy is just a really emotional person but the sheer amount of internal reflection that happened in this book was…a lot, especially for a book written in third person. I found myself skimming a lot of it tbh.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
CW for this book: graphic violence
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Racism
nerdylari's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture and Child death
Moderate: Racism
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