It's been over a year since I read my last one of these. I remember reading the Frozen one down in Florida on vacation in 2021. I got distracted with finishing off the Valentino villain series and we know how that one went. So now it's back to A Twisted Tale. Gah, these are mostly so much better.
Aside from Disney Fairies, I'm not a huge Pan fan. I remember starting this one also on vacation and only getting a few chapters in. It does start out slow, but then it gets good. Really good.
The premise is a bit confusing at first, because it seems like the Darlings went to Never Land, but really, it's all just Wendy's stories. They've never been. She's never met Peter. She doesn't know Tink exists. But Wendy tells such good Peter Pan tales that he drags Tink down to London to hang out outside the nursery window and listen in. On one trip, Nana grabs his shadow and for four years, the Darlings do have a physical sign that Never Land exists. However, only Wendy cares. Michael is a typical young boy. John is precocious, highly intelligent, and a bit snobbish.
The book opens with Wendy not being thrilled with her current life. She's 16 now. The boys are in school but she didn't go. She doesn't fit in with other people her age. She's thoroughly too distracted with Never Land. She writes stories about it in a notebook. Her parents try to distract her by giving her a small dog. She's not thrilled. (And honestly, a bit of an asshole about it. It's not the dog's fault she isn't a wolf.) After they find her notebook of stories, her parents overreact and decide to send her to Ireland, where she'll be a nanny for 5 young boys. I'm not sure why this reaction to her writing is so outlandish. She could be an author, for fuck's sake. (This point is eventually driven home by Michael much later on, but Wendy sadly never writes her stories in novel form from what I can tell.)
So Wendy brazenly decides to yell into the ether that she has Peter Pan's shadow. And she packs a bag and wanders to the Thames in the middle of the night, as if this is going to work. Yet it does work, because here comes Hook on the Jolly Roger. Wendy trades the shadow for a trip to Never Land and back home again. She spends some time aboard the ship, but Hook's actual plan unfolds soon. He said he'd take her to Never Land but didn't say anything about letting her go ashore. He plans for her to be the ship's "mother." With the help of a dissatisfied pirate named Zane, Wendy escapes the ship.
Once on shore, she finds this special place she created in her stories, as well as a young wolf named Luna, who's apparently her BFF in her tales. She realizes things she wrote about actually came to exist in Never Land.
Then she's off to find the Lost Boys to get their help in the eventual battle against Hook. He's planning to use Peter's shadow as part of some big plan to finally take him and Never Land out at the same time. The Lost Boys are good characters. One is a girl, who tells her secret when Wendy is there.
Wendy journeys off with Tink to find Peter. So much happens. I'm not trying to summarize, but they have a LOT of adventures. The mermaid chapters were really enjoyable. Tink initially hated Wendy. When Peter was searching for his shadow, Tink kept discouraging him from checking London out of jealousy. So she's partially at fault for him being separated from it, as is Wendy for the current situation. Watching their relationship change and grow over the course of the book is really the best part of the whole thing. This isn't Disney Fairies Tink. This is definitely fleeting emotions, changeable Tink. But she's done so well.
On the cover, that's Wendy's shadow, not some random silhouette illustration. She's also a character, as is Peter's shadow.
We also do meet some other fairies. One is a female who was pretty rude, but the male, Thorn, is awesome and Wendy develops a crush on him that's cute.
I won't say anything else for fear of spoiling too much, but if you are a fan of the dark Disney stuff, definitely check this one out. It's up there with the Mulan and Aladdin ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment