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bellebookstitch666's review
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Violence, Medical trauma, and Mental illness
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Animal cruelty, Torture, and Body horror
Minor: Bullying, Kidnapping, and Death of parent
_annabanana_'s review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Sexism, Mental illness, Misogyny, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Death of parent, Child death, Animal death, Grief, and War
Minor: Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Cultural appropriation
mcmurdoc97's review
- 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
Graphic: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
jcinf's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
On one hand, I feel icky reading such a creepy retelling of a beloved story that I cherished growing up.
But on the other hand, the story wouldn’t hit as much if it *weren't* retelling of such a cherished story.
You kinda need the context of the original story to create the profound message that this novel presents (e.g.: spoiled boys that refuse to grow up are dangerous).
I do see the feedback of people saying the message was a little heavy-handed. The author could’ve made the point without spelling it out quite so much. But I also didn’t mind it. I read for pleasure and not to analyze a book down to its details, so sometimes (not all the times), I miss a message if it’s not delivered in a more literal way.
Regardless, I enjoyed her writing style. I enjoyed the twisted take on Peter Pan — even if it did feel icky to read at times. The icky-ness is, after all, what helps make the point.
Great world-building and great descriptions. Thoroughly good book.
Graphic: Medical trauma, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
Minor: War and Murder
elena2000rr's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Child death, Medical trauma, Violence, Mental illness, Bullying, Racial slurs, Blood, Emotional abuse, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Animal death, Racism, and Torture
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, and War
abominablesnowaro's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Kidnapping, Misogyny, Violence, Gaslighting, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death
Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Classism, Colonisation, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, War, and Xenophobia
very_mellifluous's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Some specific instances felt very Lord of the Flies, which was actually quite interesting in context. I personally am not a LOTF fan, and I liked seeing what I categorized as nods to that story re-imagined here.
Moderate: Animal death
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- 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
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.
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