My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Sixteen-year-old Wendy Darling's life is not what she imagined it would be. The doldrums of an empty house after her brothers have gone to school, the dull parties where everyone thinks she talks too much, and the fact that her parents have decided to send her away to Ireland as a governess - it all makes her wish things could be different.
Wendy's only real escape is in writing down tales of Never Land. After nearly meeting her hero, Peter Pan, four years earlier, she still holds on to the childhood hope that his magical home truly exists. She also holds on to his shadow.
So when an opportunity to travel to Never Land via pirate ship presents itself, Wendy makes a deal with the devil. But Never Land isn't quite the place she imagined it would be. Unexpected dangers and strange foes pop up at every turn, and a little pixie named Tinker Bell seems less than willing to help.
But when Captain Hook reveals some rather permanent and evil plans for Never Land, it's up to the two of them to save Peter Pan - and his world."
In this Twisted Tale, Nana catches Peter Pan's shadow while Peter sits outside the nursery window listening to one of Wendy's stories, but Peter never returns to London to retrieve it. Wendy keeps the shadow safe for years, hoping for the day he finally does come back. While she waits, Wendy goes through the motions of life as a young lady, helping her mother keep the household running smoothly, preparing after-school tea for her brothers, and being bored to tears. Her only moments of happiness come when she scribbles stories of Never Land in her notebook.
No one understands her imagination or love of stories, and when her parents find her notebook, they are horrified. Wendy is sixteen, and according to them the tales she has spun are "not the product of a happy, normal girl." To save her from herself, they decide to send her to Ireland to become a governess. Desperate to escape being sent away and forced to leave her childhood dreams behind, Wendy does the unthinkable. She contacts Captain Hook and makes a bargain...Peter's shadow in exchange for passage to and from Never Land.
Aboard his pirate ship with Hook in possession of Peter Pan's shadow, things go downhill quickly. For starters, Wendy is not as adept at negotiating with pirates as she thought she was, and as a result, she finds herself a prisoner, forced to serve as the pirates' mother. Even worse, Captain Hook plans to use the shadow not only to capture Peter, but to bring about the destruction of all of Never Land. With the help of one of the pirates, Wendy manages to escape the ship and make it to Never Land. She finds Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys, but no one has seen Peter in ages. Will Wendy be able to free Peter's shadow and save Never Land without him?
Peter Pan is one of my favorite Disney movies, so I've really been looking forward to reading this Twisted Tale, and I was not disappointed! It got off to a slow start, and I wish they had showed Wendy in more of the awkward social situations she obviously despises rather than alluding to them or revealing them through her memories, but that's a small gripe. Once she makes it to Never Land, it's basically non-stop adventure, something Wendy notes is much more exhausting and frustrating and far less exhilarating than she always imagined.
Wendy and Tinker Bell team up to find Peter Pan, and while Wendy and Tink aren't very taken with each other in the movie version, in this world their initially unwilling partnership gradually blossoms into true friendship. Their relationship is possibly my favorite part of the book. I also dearly love how progressively snarky Wendy becomes as the book goes on, culminating in a line I never would have expected could crack me up as hard as it did - "The deuce you say." Trust me...it may not sound funny, but it is. This book was a Girl Power anthem and a testament to the magic and might of storytelling.
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