I am utterly disappointed in the most miserable way. There were SO many opportunities in this story for me to love it, but unfortunately in my opinion, it made all the wrong choices. I am the biggest fan of Peter Pan, so I had great expectations to love this story. I wanted to love it, I really did, but I felt no magic in this. Frankly I felt like the magic was sucked away to oblivion from this. I utterly adore the original Peter Pan book, disney movie, and even the Disney sequel. They were extremely present in my childhood. The whimsical story with exciting adventures and characters were totally lost on me though in this book, and I was left with so many unanswered questions that I honestly don’t even care about. I might be going too hard on this book. Yes. It is a book that has a story to it. Some people may enjoy it. But I did not. I’ve read better unpublished Peter Pan fan fictions. I’m gonna go through all of my disappointments to show you why.
From here on out we get into spoilers.
Disappointment 1— Captain Hook. I was so intrigued by the book premise. Wendy teams up with the villain!!? YES please!!! That is my favorite kind of story. I was so ready for a possible redemption arc, or at least some more background information on Captain Hook. Or maybe even that this book pulled a Once Upon a Time and made Hook hot and romantic. I don’t really care. The structure was there for so many paths! It was completely possible! But instead we got some boring filler chapters of Hook slowly going insane. And that could have been done way better too.
Disappointment 2— the Tinker Bell/Wendy friendship. Once I gave up on my dreams of Captain Wendy, I was happy with the direction we were going in. A fairy friendship!? New character development of Tink and Wendy!! YES! But no... their interactions were SO bland and forced. This was the most intriguing concept that Braswell chose to elaborate on, but still... I thought it was done pretty poorly. There were too many quick forgives and too many generic and meaningless heart to hearts.
Disappointment 3— Wendy. Our primary narrator was SO BORING. By the end, we were kind of tricked into thinking that something changed in her, but really, this Wendy was a completely different Wendy from the cannon story. It’s fine that she changed in the years she was waiting for Pan, but we need an arc in this story too. I could say more but I’ll move on.
Disappointment 4— the WAY feminism was brought up. I am all for Wendy fighting for women’s rights, or a girl joining the lost boys. But the way we got there was so outside of the time frame this book was set in. It felt like this Wendy time traveled from 2020 and fell into the early 1900s. It felt so unrealistic, taking me out of the story, and did not impact me in any way.
Disappointment 5— the First, and the witch. This was something that I was sooo intrigued by. The First and the witch were such interesting characters and we got only one scene from them that told us essentially nothing. I would read a whole other book about them, but from this one, we got pretty much nothing.
Disappointment 6— weird romance/relationship vibes. So at first, I though we were gonna get a young and dashing hook. Fine. I love it. Then I thought we were gonna get a young and dashing Zane pirate. Sure. Cool. Whatever. THEN, I thought we were gonna get no romance and focus on Wendy and Tinker Bell’s friendship. Yes. I’m here for it. And in the back of my mind, I was curious of whether or not Peter was gonna be a love interest for Wendy. But no. Tinker Bell is in love with Peter and he (and I) think that’s weird but whatever. And then Wendy saw Peter as really young, which he turned out to be in this version. Which still I’m okay with. THEN. we get this weird thing with the male fairy and Wendy and nothing ever happens but they’re vibing and I can’t help but remember that fairies are TINY— like fit in your hand— and I can’t help but think that this is the most ridiculous romance plot imaginable.
Disappointment 7— PETER PAN. Is it really you Peter? Because I don’t think so. This imposter didn’t show up until 70% through the book!!! And he was off laying on a beach mad at his lost boys and galavanting with all the mermaids. This Peter was weak, and not fun or whimsical at all. And he was so boring! And just. AHHH I hated it. THIS WAS A PETER PAN STORY AND WE ONLY GOT PETER PAN FOR THE LAST 30% of the book!? (If even because most of the time he was unconscious or not in the scene) UGH. that was the worst of it for me. That was the clincher that made this book a 1 Star.
There’s more but I’m tired and so over this book. It’s making me mad to write about it more. This scene pretty much sums up my biggest issue with this book. And then I’ll be done.
There’s one scene when Peter is talking to Wendy and Tink. Tink kisses Wendy on the cheek and then salutes to Peter. And Peter laughs and jokes to Wendy that “Tink KISSED you and only saluted me” or something like that. But one of the main things about both book and movie version of Peter Pan is that he has no idea what a kiss is and he ends up mixing up words and refers to a kiss as a thimble and a thimble as a kiss. Now I know this is a pretty detailed moment to point out, but here is my problem with this book and it showed a lot: there was no care to keep the spirit of Peter Pan alive, and something as simple as referring back to a kiss as a thimble would have shown an ounce of care for this book. This is just a little taste of the overall emptiness of this story.
I’m sad and annoyed and need to cleanse my palette with the Disney Peter Pan 1 or 2 or both ASAP.