Title: Tiger Lily
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Genres: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Retellings, Young Adult
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Published: July 3rd, 2012
Edition: Paperback
Source: ARC (Provided by Publisher)
Rating:
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.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn’t grow up.
My Review:
Tiger Lily takes the reader into a different part of Neverland where we meet Tiger Lily, a young girl who makes a dramatic impact on Peter Pan’s life before Wendy even enters the picture. The tale is told by Tinkerbell, who has a wonderful and refreshing little voice that is insightful in regards to both the outside characters such as Tiger Lily and Peter, as well as giving the reader a little bit more of an insight into Tink herself and where her character’s actions and origins come from.
I really enjoyed this. I’ve never read the Peter Pan book, just seen the Disney movie, but it’s of course a fun tale so when I found out this was a retelling, or rather sort of a prequel to that story I was excited and curious to see how another girl other than Wendy could win Peter’s heart.
I’m not sure how much Disney played down some of the darker parts of Peter Pan’s story, but this one is certainly a bit darker and more brooding than the Disney movie. That’s not a bad thing though; it was just a bit shocking to see things such as Peter actually killing one of the pirates. But it was more realistic in that sense as well. For example, if you’re running from someone who is trying to hurt you (i.e. Hook) then you will do anything you have to in order to protect yourself and those in your care.
But anyways, I enjoyed this book a lot because it’s unique and different and while I sometimes loved Tiger Lily, there were other times where she really made me mad. But she was very real in her actions and as all humans have weaknesses, so did she. The same goes with Peter. Rather than being portrayed as practically perfect, his flaws and imperfections are more revealed and I enjoyed that.
What I loved most about this book though was the writing style. I’ve never read anything by Jodi Lynn Anderson, so her voice was refreshing to me. Although the story isn’t written in poem or prose form or anything like that, her writing style has a poetic and lyrical quality to it that I really enjoyed. I will certainly be reading more of her books in the future.
Overall, this was wonderful and while the ending isn’t quite a happy-skip-through-fields-of-flowers Disney ending, it was a refreshing and new take on a classic tale we’ve all at least heard of, whether we love it or not.
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