Image: Macmillan
Darling by K. Ancrum. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~7 hours. Read by Angel Pean. Tantor Audio/ Tantor Media, June, 2021. (Review of e-audio borrowed from the public library.)
Teen Tuesday features Darling by K. Ancrum. Darling is a contemporary retelling of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. It is a dark and twisty thriller that mature teen readers will find hard to put down.
First, you may be wondering why, during Native American/ Indigenous Heritage Month, I am featuring a retelling of the Peter Pan story. Both Barrie and Disney treated the Tiger Lily part of the storyline very stereotypically. In Darling, the Tiger Lily character is called Ominotago, and she is fierce, independent and determined. But I'm getting ahead of the plot.
Wendy Darling has moved from the suburbs to Chicago with her overprotective parents. She's stifling under their rules, but recognizes that they love her. Her window doesn't close properly, but her father postpones fixing it, telling her to put a book in the opening. That doesn't deter the person who later breaks into the Darling home thinking that it's empty. That person is Peter Pan, a beautiful, charismatic boy. Nana, the Darling dog, ripped the sleeve off Peter's favorite jacket and Wendy sews it back on for him. Peter invites Wendy to come to a party with him and Tinkerbell. Tink is furious, but Wendy is intrigued. What could be wrong with going out with the boy who broke into your house for a night in a brand new city where you know no one?
Readers soon meet the Lost Boys, but new characters are also introduced, including Ominotago's football teammates. The two crews need to duck into a nightclub called "The Mermaid's Lagoon" to hide from the police, headed by a detective known as Hook. The cast of characters is huge but each is fully fleshed out and quite diverse. The Chicago setting, complete with a ride on the L, is vivid.
If you are a fan of thrillers, Darling is the book for you. I probably should've read this one with my eyes, in part because I can read faster, especially when the suspense is high, but mostly because I didn't love the narration. The narrator mispronounced quite a few words and that became a distraction. Also, her pacing was erratic and didn't match the mood.
First, you may be wondering why, during Native American/ Indigenous Heritage Month, I am featuring a retelling of the Peter Pan story. Both Barrie and Disney treated the Tiger Lily part of the storyline very stereotypically. In Darling, the Tiger Lily character is called Ominotago, and she is fierce, independent and determined. But I'm getting ahead of the plot.
Wendy Darling has moved from the suburbs to Chicago with her overprotective parents. She's stifling under their rules, but recognizes that they love her. Her window doesn't close properly, but her father postpones fixing it, telling her to put a book in the opening. That doesn't deter the person who later breaks into the Darling home thinking that it's empty. That person is Peter Pan, a beautiful, charismatic boy. Nana, the Darling dog, ripped the sleeve off Peter's favorite jacket and Wendy sews it back on for him. Peter invites Wendy to come to a party with him and Tinkerbell. Tink is furious, but Wendy is intrigued. What could be wrong with going out with the boy who broke into your house for a night in a brand new city where you know no one?
Readers soon meet the Lost Boys, but new characters are also introduced, including Ominotago's football teammates. The two crews need to duck into a nightclub called "The Mermaid's Lagoon" to hide from the police, headed by a detective known as Hook. The cast of characters is huge but each is fully fleshed out and quite diverse. The Chicago setting, complete with a ride on the L, is vivid.
If you are a fan of thrillers, Darling is the book for you. I probably should've read this one with my eyes, in part because I can read faster, especially when the suspense is high, but mostly because I didn't love the narration. The narrator mispronounced quite a few words and that became a distraction. Also, her pacing was erratic and didn't match the mood.
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