Cocktails and Books

This was such an interesting take on the tale of Peter Pan. The author took the fun loving story about the boy who wouldn't grow up and put a dark spin on it. If you ever wondered what happened to Wendy (or Gwendy in this case) after she left Peter's island, this is definitely a book to pick up.

Gwen Barre was trying to put her life back into some semblance of "normal" after spending several years under psychiatric care. The heir to the Barre company and fortune has all eyes on her to see if she can withstand the pressures of college before they make the decision about turning the company over to her. Gwen's not sure she's ready to be in this type of situation, but she's determined to try. She has her brother with her and her roommate, but things are easy for Gwen, still haunted by the dreams of The Boy she's been told she created to deal with the events that lead her to be in psychiatric care. So when she runs into guy who looks haunting familiar, red hair and all, she finds herself fighting with everyone and herself as she tries to figure out just why she's drawn to someone everyone says is bad for her.
Gwen's broke my heart, because she really was a girl lost. She was trying to figure out how she fit into the world, how she can convince her family she was getting better while dealing with the dreams that proved (to her) that she was getting anything but better. You could see that she'd lost faith in a lot of things, but more importantly, she'd lost it in herself. She could fake friendly smiles and dates with boys, but she really was lost. Until Peter.
Peter came to Northern looking for his Gwendy. We never really learned the extent of just what Peter went through to get to Wendy, but we did see what her inability to remember him did. Despite what others may have said, Peter really was the only one that helped Gwen. Instead of telling her what she should be feeling or doing, he helped her remember what it was like to think for herself and ultimately remember who she was.

The Lost Boys are present in the story, but off in the back where we don't have a lot of involvement with them, except for Tank. Tinkerbelle is there too and she is nothing like the little pixie you remember. She's a bit of a bitch and definitely holds a grudge against Gwen for "stealing" Peter from her.

I applaud the author to taking a childhood favorite and putting a New Adult spin on it. The characters are full of angst, which brings a dark edge to the story that had me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. There were elements to the story that I wish we had more of (Peter's back story and what he's gone through to get to Gwen, his relationship with the Lost Boys now) and the way the book ends leaves me wishing there were more coming so we knew what happened after, but I'll use my imagination and believe Gwen and Peter got their HEA.