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A review by cocoonofbooks
Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher
5.0
Reread 2/13/2020:
I'm glad I had the chance to reread this. I wasn't reading so frantically this time, so I had the opportunity to appreciate the complexities of Christopher's writing. She doesn't leave the reader with an easy answer about right vs. wrong — there are elements of the situation that are clearly very wrong, but given that the last book our book club read was An Untamed State, well... this can't help but seem almost idyllic in comparison.
When Gemma was first brought to the house, I started thinking about the experience of a foster child brought into a new home, and I kept that lens throughout the book, which was fascinating to think about. It raises questions about what the difference really is — we're putting a child with people they don't know and keeping them there, and if that family adopts them then we expect them to develop real affection for those new parents. Other than having some fits of temper, Ty acts a lot like a foster parent or an adoptive parent of an older child, reiterating how much he loves Gemma and hopes she'll come to love her new home, and trying to take care of her while also locking her in a room or restraining her when she tries to hurt him or herself. I'm hoping to dive into that perspective with my book club!
What I said previously about the beautiful nature writing and the complexity of human emotion still stands. Definitely a good book for reading and discussing.
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4.5 stars. The whole time I was reading this, I was thinking that how I felt about the book would ultimately come down to how it ended. There were so many ways for it to go wrong. Now, having seen how well Christopher ended the book, I feel like maybe I didn't appreciate the rest of the book as much as I could have.
The writing is excellent. She has such attention to detail, while also being able to paint a broad and vivid picture of nature — its beauty and its brutality. She also captures the range of human emotion well, as well as the narrator's thoughts about her own emotions. There were a few spots where I felt like stuff was glossed over ("I don't know why I feel this way, but I'm not going to think about it"), but it didn't detract from the book too much. The complexity of the subject matter was handled well, I thought.
I disagree with the assessment that we're supposed to fall for Ty from the beginning, or at least I didn't. I kept thinking, please, don't let this end with her falling in love with him and them living happily ever after. All the way up to the snakebite, I thought, no, don't let it go in this direction. But then, when I heard he was being arrested and taken to prison, I thought, wait, wait, no, just let him go back to his little house in the desert! He's not going to hurt anyone there! Just let him live the life he wants to live! And in that way, Christopher got me. I ended up conflicted, and that's what made the book so good.
This would be an excellent book club read. There's a lot here to discuss and debate. I would recommend this book to anyone for an engaging read.
I'm glad I had the chance to reread this. I wasn't reading so frantically this time, so I had the opportunity to appreciate the complexities of Christopher's writing. She doesn't leave the reader with an easy answer about right vs. wrong — there are elements of the situation that are clearly very wrong, but given that the last book our book club read was An Untamed State, well... this can't help but seem almost idyllic in comparison.
When Gemma was first brought to the house, I started thinking about the experience of a foster child brought into a new home, and I kept that lens throughout the book, which was fascinating to think about. It raises questions about what the difference really is — we're putting a child with people they don't know and keeping them there, and if that family adopts them then we expect them to develop real affection for those new parents. Other than having some fits of temper, Ty acts a lot like a foster parent or an adoptive parent of an older child, reiterating how much he loves Gemma and hopes she'll come to love her new home, and trying to take care of her while also locking her in a room or restraining her when she tries to hurt him or herself. I'm hoping to dive into that perspective with my book club!
What I said previously about the beautiful nature writing and the complexity of human emotion still stands. Definitely a good book for reading and discussing.
--
4.5 stars. The whole time I was reading this, I was thinking that how I felt about the book would ultimately come down to how it ended. There were so many ways for it to go wrong. Now, having seen how well Christopher ended the book, I feel like maybe I didn't appreciate the rest of the book as much as I could have.
The writing is excellent. She has such attention to detail, while also being able to paint a broad and vivid picture of nature — its beauty and its brutality. She also captures the range of human emotion well, as well as the narrator's thoughts about her own emotions. There were a few spots where I felt like stuff was glossed over ("I don't know why I feel this way, but I'm not going to think about it"), but it didn't detract from the book too much. The complexity of the subject matter was handled well, I thought.
This would be an excellent book club read. There's a lot here to discuss and debate. I would recommend this book to anyone for an engaging read.