By Jodi Lynn Anderson
Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .
Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.
Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.
With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.
Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.
Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.
With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.
Told from Tinkerbell's point of view, it was nice to have the incite that the fairy gave me. It's not quite the same Neverland we all know and love, but it's written to convince of it's existence. Like it's a plausible place that no craft has been able to get to because of nature. Tinkerbell tells the story of Tiger lily and Peter pan, how they fall in love, how he was betrayed, and how he ended up with Wendy. It's not one of those stories that come with happy endings. In the end, I could understand why Tinkerbell had such a dislike for Wendy. I did too. I wasn't as emotionally interested in this book like I am with most. While the fairytale seemed plausible and realistic, that's all it is to me: a fairytale.
Tinkerbell's insights make me appreciate the characters more. Captain Hook is just a discouraged gentlemen wanting to be rid of the boy who's destroyed everything he learned as a child. Reginald Smee is a sociopath who kills people he admires. Tinkerbell is a fairy who's dad left when she was little, who fell in love with Peter Pan the moment she laid eyes on him, and who accepted that she could only receive his love by watching him with Tiger lily.
The book also goes through how Tiger lily lives: what friends she has, what friends she doesn't have, and the people she puts up with. She hasn't had an easy life.
The characters and world were very well developed and this novel has every right to have 5 stars, but I just couldn't connect to it. I couldn't get emotionally involved and invested into the story. It might be because I read books to go to happy places and this wasn't a very happy place to be so I didn't allow myself to get too close to the characters, especially since Tinkerbell warns in the very first page that the story won't have a happy ending. That's just me though. The book deserved every star it got.
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