Synopsis from Goodreads:
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 Reaction:
The first time I ever read an Anderson book, I was eleven years old, curled up in my bed, reading her May Bird series. It was terrifying and yet, I couldn't put the book down. Years later, Anderson's words have managed to ensnare me yet again, leaving me breathless, horrified, and once again, falling in love.
We all know the story of Peter Pan. Boy doesn't want to grow up. Boy meets girl. Boy shows girl Neverland. Girl grows up anyway. But Tiger Lily is so much more than that. It is the story of first love, heartbreak, acceptance, and the horrifying realities of life. Told in Tinker Bell's point of view (who until recently was not one of my favorite characters in Peter Pan), Tiger Lily and Peter Pan's love story is narrated in an innocent manner and highlights the purity and growth of their relationship.
This story is honestly nothing like Peter Pan. Peter Pan's world was a beautiful one, one with magic and youth and eternal possibilities for life. But Tiger Lily's world is different. It is a savage and cruel world, one with death, disease, and despair. Anderson completely re imagined Neverland in her novel, showing the reader the true face of the island that we had come to love as children.
I think the winning factor for me as pertaining to this story was the careful and constructive shaping of the characters. Each character, whether it be Tiger Lily, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, or even Mr. Smee, they all have shades of grey and consist of both good and evil. No one is portrayed as completely evil and neither is anyone portrayed as completely good. Anderson embodies the true human spirit with all its flaws in her characters, who take both the right decisions and the wrong. Tiger Lily is devastatingly beautiful. She is a lonely girl, wild in her own way and persistent. She is hands down, a great heroine. Peter Pan? Oh where do I begin, you handsome, charming devil, you. Peter Pan, in Anderson's novel, is a boy of contradictions and transforms from the Peter Pan we know to Peter, who is truly human in all his ways.
Honestly, I feel like I can go on and on about this book and how much it made me cry and laugh and hate and love Anderson all at the same time. But I'll leave that to you!
My rating for the novel because it was just amazing, honestly put:
Do check it out and make sure to leave your thoughts!
- Sidra
