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Such A Novel Idea

Girl Lost

Girl Lost - Nazarea Andrews I received a copy of this book via the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinion.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This book both fascinated and frustrated me. Most new adult books seem to have the same ‘pattern’ to them — two messed up people fall for each other, one dates another person to distract themselves, they finally get together, something happens, etc. It got kind of boring after awhile, so I stopped reading the genre all together. However, when I saw this book A) I flipped out over that gorgeous cover. I mean, COME ON. Plus, I’m 95% sure to pick up any book with stars on the cover, so that helped. And B) The idea of a Peter Pan retelling from a NA book just sounded interesting. How would that work?

Well, it worked fabulously. The weaving of the retelling into this story was done really well. I enjoyed ‘meeting’ all the characters from the original story — I loved that our main character was Gwen (Gwendolyn Barrie), keeping the Wendy vibe, but still changing it up a bit. I loved that she met the ‘Boy’ as a child, but didn’t have a name for him beyond ‘Boy’ so when she meets Peter, it isn’t trite and overdone. Everything about the retelling was done perfectly, down to her brother Micah (Michael), her room mate Orchid (aka Tigerlily), and James (who I imagined as a swoony captain Hook from OUAT). Tinkerbell aka Belle Evans made an appearance and even the lost boys. It was just like reading in a dreamy, whimsical state, where I was floating between reality and fantasy. I loved it.

What I didn’t love was the end. The very last scene was perfect, it was a great place to finish the book. However, the scenes leading up to the memory seemed abrupt and unfinished. I am hoping that this author plans to write more, because if not, I have far too many questions to be done with this story. I think with a little more explanation, this could have been a satisfying stand-alone, but without that I’ll always wonder.

Another issue I had was some 'jumps' in the story without explanation -- like how James came into their lives. It was one coffee meeting and suddenly he is together with her room mate. I think these jumps jolted me out of the story more than anything, so some smoothing in the background information could have easily overcome this.

The NA part of the book was just like every other NA I’ve read. What really made it was the fantasy retelling weaved throughout the story. And going through Gwen’s ‘madness’ and ascent into sanity was done well. It was hard rating this book, because it did keep my attention and the story was well written, but in the end, without the retelling, it was another NA complicated love story. That’s not really the fault of this book, or this author, just my wish that this genre would begin to branch out. And the first step is doing things like this book did with the Peter Pan retelling. It was a bold move, and in the end, I think Andrews really pulled it off.

For this review and more, visit Such a Novel Idea.

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First Impressions

This was an interesting spin on a classic tale. It's the first New Adult retelling I've read and while it had a lot of the same characteristics we see in a typical NA, there was something whimsical about this book that help my attention.

The end was pretty abrupt and makes me think there will be a sequel. Full review to come!