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joynhensley 's review for:
Stolen
by Lucy Christopher
Stolen, a debut novel by Lucy Christopher, is at once a harrowing account of the life of a kidnapped teen, and love letter to the land in which the kidnapped girl is taken.
Stolen from a Bangkok airport, Gemma is taken to the wilds of Australia. There, alone with Ty, her kidnapper, she must live in solitude, hundreds of miles from any other humans. All attempts to escape are futile when she is surrounded with sand dune after sand dune and no possibility of water.
But the lyrical way in which Lucy Christopher writes, leaves the reader with hope. Even when every chance of rescue runs out, even when Gemma doesn't know how she feels about her captor anymore--is there a chance she could fall in love with someone who has taken her away from everything she's ever known?--the possibility of being saved is still there. Will it be the land, Ty, or herself that frees her from this desert prison?
The story left me haunted in more ways than one. The struggle between right and wrong, good and bad, are as colorful as the red sand that covers every inch of ground Gemma sees, and as broad ranging as the enormous sky above her. The book is sweltering and beautiful at the same time, and in the end, we realize that nothing is what it seems, and there's no clear-cut way life could ever go back to what it was, not when something so monumental happens.
Stolen is definitely at the top of my list for young adult contemporary.
Stolen from a Bangkok airport, Gemma is taken to the wilds of Australia. There, alone with Ty, her kidnapper, she must live in solitude, hundreds of miles from any other humans. All attempts to escape are futile when she is surrounded with sand dune after sand dune and no possibility of water.
But the lyrical way in which Lucy Christopher writes, leaves the reader with hope. Even when every chance of rescue runs out, even when Gemma doesn't know how she feels about her captor anymore--is there a chance she could fall in love with someone who has taken her away from everything she's ever known?--the possibility of being saved is still there. Will it be the land, Ty, or herself that frees her from this desert prison?
The story left me haunted in more ways than one. The struggle between right and wrong, good and bad, are as colorful as the red sand that covers every inch of ground Gemma sees, and as broad ranging as the enormous sky above her. The book is sweltering and beautiful at the same time, and in the end, we realize that nothing is what it seems, and there's no clear-cut way life could ever go back to what it was, not when something so monumental happens.
Stolen is definitely at the top of my list for young adult contemporary.