A review by j3mm4
Darling by K. Ancrum

mysterious tense fast-paced

• 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

4.5

I found this book through a favorable comparison in a Booktuber's negative review about another YA Peter Pan reimagining, and I agree that it's a pretty good YA book. It's also a compelling reimagining - what, in the real world, is a boy who refuses to grow up? what, in the real world, does a lost boy look like? - and I can absolutely see the appeal. Wendy is a caring and stubborn teenage girl who feels very real, and Ancrum's teen protagonist voice feels very grounded in contemporary teenage communications, albeit those from the mid-late 2010s rather  than the early 2020s. For my own tastes, it was also pretty young stylistically, but I'm an adult, so that's to be expected. My biggest bugbears with this book are the pacing - the revelations about Peter come really late in the game - and how ultimately passive Wendy is throughout much of the plot. The idea that she can manipulate Peter because of who her mom is is barely set up through either backstory or her personality, and if we had seen her be a little more observant, a little more willing to cling onto the flashes of Peter's manipulations, a little more adept at social manipulation, that would've gone a long way to emotionally setting up the climax even if we couldn't, say, have her mother be more explicit about her fears for Wendy in Chicago or even express her seeming-paranoia through educating Wendy on what these kinds of predators are like and how they operate. The happy ending was foreshadowed so well as to almost feel like it was hitting me over the head, but with the context of everything happening between the setup and the epilogue's payoff, it felt earned and a little special, and I appreciate that hindsight reveals Peter's reaction to its foreshadowing as bitterly possessive and provides more depth to the exchange. It's a good book, and I think I could've had more fun with it when I was in its target audience, but I also think I would've had the best time with it as a middle schooler because of how young it feels and how uninterested it is in the stakes between zero and serial killing.