Author: Lucy Christopher
Release Date: May 1, 2010
Pages: 299
My rating: 5 stars
Summary: While 16-year-old Gemma is en route to Vietnam from England with her parents, she is drugged and kidnapped from the Bangkok airport. She regains full consciousness in a rustic house deep in the Australian Outback with a 25-year-old man who is going to keep her forever. Ty never sexually abuses her, but she is truly a captive. Little by little, Ty wears down her defenses as Gemma realizes that escape is impossible. Soon she discovers the stark power and vibrancy of the wilderness and becomes absorbed in it. She also learns that Ty has been stalking her for years, devising a crafty plan to steal her away to make her love him which she ultimately believes she does. Ty's capture, taming, and release of a female camel effectively parallels Gemma's ordeal. Her unique first-person narrative is written to Ty after her release. Both characters are as vivid as the desert setting in which they are immersed. Despite the fact that Ty is a kidnapper, the revelations about his difficult youth and his usually caring behavior allow readers, like Gemma, to eventually care about him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spoiler alert!!!
To start, I didn't know what this book was about when I picked it up. I thought it was a love story (blame the butterfly and that the copy I had didn't say "A letter to my captor" on it. So I was kind of surprised when I started reading it and, low and behold, it's not one. I didn't think I was going to really like it, and was disappointed it wasn't a love story (wouldn't Stolen be an awesome name for a love story? Like the Dashboard Confessional song) but I quickly grew to be fascinated by it. It was an amazing story about a guy, who was I believe genuinely in love with a girl, stealing her away from everything she's ever known and taking her to the Australian outback. I really wish Ty waited about 10 years and tried to get her to love him and Australia normally....but it would still be super creepy cause he's been stalking her since she was 10.
This was my first book by Lucy Christopher, and I have to say I was amazed. She's an excellent writer, she developed the story beautifully and poetically and at just the right pace. I love how she wrote the story from a letter's perspective, how it was Gemma's account of what happened in her own words. I connected with Gemma, and because of the unique way Christopher wrote it, with Ty too. I understood his logic in taking her quickly, but I wish Christopher gave us more information about Gemma's past life so I could figure out Ty's reasoning a bit more, it almost made me wonder if he was a liar as well as psychotic.
I loved the ending, how Ty goes with Gemma in the plane even though he knows he's going to get caught. It redeems him a little bit, and proves that he really, truly loved her in all his crazy and obsessiveness. I wish there had been more answers about Anna and Ben though, they were both mentioned a few times in the book, but Gemma never goes in depth about them. I can see why, it being a letter to Ty, and why would she go in depth about them in a letter to him? But I still wish Christopher had found a way to incorporate their stories into it.
All in all, Stolen was an amazing, poetic read. I fell in love with Gemma, and, I'm sorry to say, Ty. There was just something about him that made me love him. Maybe it was the way he seemed to really care about her, or how much he loved Australia despite the fact that it seemed dead to everyone else. Maybe it was when he got on the plane with Gemma when she asked him to. I just loved them both. I was continuously thinking that I would react the same way, should I ever been in the same position. Christopher did an amazing job with this unique novel, I'll definitely be looking forward to read more by her.
Summin it up:
Plot: Fascinating and poetic. 4/5
Characters: The only ones you really interact with are Ty and Gemma, and both were really great characters. Described well and very realistic. 5/5
Writing: Beautiful, this book made me a big Lucy Christopher fan.
Ending: Well drawn out, I wish it answered some more questions though. 4/5
Kid friendly: The f bomb is dropped a few times, and there's substance abuse.
2 comments:
Interesting book! I've seen it around but never knew what it was about, I assumed it was a love story too. Thanks for this review.
NC
Truly Bookish
Heh, so did I. As stated above, Stolen would be an awesome name for a love story xD Almost a shame it isn't one.
Post a Comment