Wow! ( )

Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry reworks the Peter Pan legend and turns it into a dark fantasy as we learn that Captain Hook was originally Jamie, Peter’s best friend, but he grew progressively disenchanted by Peter’s manipulation, ego and controlling ways. As he learns to love Peter less, he also starts to grow up and want more than to simply be a boy and play all the time.

Peter finds and brings stray boys to the magical island, but it is Jamie who really looks after them, and sees to their safety. Peter doesn’t really care if a boy dies, he just goes and gets a new one but when he brought Charlie home, Jamie was concerned as firstly Charlie was too young and secondly, from things that Charlie tells him, he had a loving home and a mother. All too soon Peter is bored by Charlie and looking for ways to get rid of him. Peter is also insanely jealous of Jamie, and doesn’t want him spending his time caring for the others.

The author delivers a gruesome story that has a constant feeling of menace. As it builds to an exciting conclusion, we see how Jamie is forced to join the pirates and become the grown-up hunter of Peter Pan rather than the companion. A interesting take on the original story with plenty of violence and gore. ( )

I really enjoyed this! It took a while to get going and I kept getting the boys’ names confused, but I loved this take! ( )

So let's start this of by saying, that I am absolutely a fairy tale fan. I adored fairy tales as a child and my first exposure to them was not via Disney movies, but via the Grimm tales and other story books, as well as the fairy tale films in public TV around Christmas time and winter in general (I am German and fantasy retelling stories are like sand at the sea here, we have dozens upon dozens of retellings and every possible version everywhere). However, since Peter Pan is not a Grimm fairy tale, nor by Hans Christian Andersen nor Irish, he was never really an interest of mine and the only reason I read this book, is because a friend borrowed to me.

And yet I was absolutely not disappointed or bored once during the read. I felt like the ending was a little bit rushed, but that does not take away from the beauty of the writings style and the elaborate picture of the Island that Henry paints here.

Jamie is an enticing and fun character. His style is easy to read and yet the vivid descriptions and his dual opinions and feelings regarding death (not having problems with gore or violence and yet struggling with his grief) let the writing become full of life.

The story itself is of course fascinating, as it tells a much more darker and violent tale than the one Disney has children believing. And while I knew about the dark origins of Peter Pan in "Little White Bird" the way the author span the magic of the Island and Peters obsessions with protagonist Jamie felt refreshing and incredibly well made.

One thing I felt was kind off forced and unnecessary was Jamies little crush on Sally. Sally as a whole was perfectly fine as Sal in my eyes, and it didn't add anything to the story that they suddenly fell in love and she was secretly a girl. The opposite actually, I think it took away, because to me it seems like Henry just absolutely HAD to force in romance so she HAD to force in a girl character. Protecting his boys was in my eyes motivation enough for Jamie and so it kind off took me out of the story to read that little "romance" subplot

All in all a fun, solid read. I liked it. ( )

After my recent dive into Peter Pan's history i was so looking forward to this.

And i can happily say it was everything, and more, than i hoped it would be.

Everything in the sense that it was up there with at the level of 'Alice', but instead of the violent schizo escaping from a high security mental hospital, rapidly withdrawing from her anti-psychotic meds leading to a total psychotic meltdown while running around town with a mad axeman on a murder spree, this one's delving into the realms of psychopathy. Of course, like 'Alice' you can just read it as a straight forward story and not get too into the mental health side of what's going on, but it's all there if you want some depth to it. Christina is one brilliant writer.

That's everything i hoped it would be, the more than i hoped it would be was the similarity between Peter Pan and his Island and a person and place i found myself in several years ago. It was at times quite disturbing in how similar it all was, to really understand how the protagonist, Jamie, felt and to be able to put myself in his place, because i'd found myself in a very similar situation with a very similar person. But as much as it was disturbing it was so because it was so incredibly cathartic and i'm really pleased to have had the experience of reading this book, so thank you Christina for that as well.

On top of all that, i certainly felt it showed respect for J.M. Barries' work, and built on that really well giving it all a whole new dimension to consider, one only hinted at in the original works, and i definitely recommend reading those three original books by James before embarking on this one -- although this can be read as stand alone if you so wish, i just feel you'd be missing out a great deal by doing so.

For now though, this brings an end to my current Peter Pan binge, but i'm sure i'll be back to Neverland in the future, there's just too much been written around the original story for me to ignore for long.

Christina's page. ( )