A review by stromanmaddie
Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Peter Pan retelling where Peter is the bad guy. It would be helpful to know the story’s background before diving in. Much of the reading depends on you knowing the original story.
I know this because despite Peter Pan being over one hundred years old, I do not fully know the original story, just bits and pieces, and at times I was a bit confused.


*The rest of the review has spoilers!!
The pace of this book was agonizingly slow. It took 150 pages to get out the background story and for anything interesting to happen. Then, just when you think something happened, that was intensely slow. Not only that, but we kept seeing Holly say the same shit over and over. It got old fast reading the same thing in fifty different ways. 
Based on the story’s timeline and how miserable it is, I thought there was no way this story ends in a HEA, but I knew the author would hurriedly wrap it up in a nice bow anyway. Then I got to the end and realized I was right. The ending was so forced. Nothing got explained either. We were just supposed to accept what happened with no further explanation. We are supposed to infer Jack is completely healed based on Holy’s simple observation, with no explanation except a theory? Peter also went up in dust based on a theory; no clarification? Eden’s blood makes Jane age decades backward while it only heals Jack?
Not to mention how nothing ever really happens, either. The story is just a constant flow of people having conversations, and there’s never any action. When there is, we are conveniently kept out of it, and we only hear the aftermath of the story after. The crash, the fall, the party, the conceiving, even the bell tower scene. We never get to be there; we only get told the stories and memories after. I truly hope I never pick up another book like this again.

It was truly suffering being stuck in Holly’s head. She was so pessimistic, closed off, and one-track-minded. Not only was she suffocating Jack, but she was suffocating me as well. I get her concerns but let the boy live his damn life. A life shackled is no life at all. I did not feel an ounce of pity when Holly’s world started to crumble around her after Eden woke up because Holly created all of her problems with the lies she spun.
I truly despise when people’s problems are of their creation because all they do is lie to people. Sometimes, I can understand if their survival depends on it, but that was not the case here in Holly’s case. She is just stuck in her head and never takes herself out to see it from someone else’s point of view. She kept crucial information from her loved ones. Truths they had every right to know, no matter the damage the truth inflicted upon the individuals. They had the right to know, and Holly took away that right from them, especially Jack.

Besides Jack, these characters are completely one-dimensional, one-tracked, and unlovable. They either suck, or we don’t see enough of them to care. It got old fast reading the same thing in fifty different ways. 

I know I harped on about how much I disliked this story (because it sucked), but it occasionally throw out a good one-liner.


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