Genre: YA Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retelling, Mystery
Date Published: March 23, 2021
Rating: ★★★★
When children go missing in the small coastal town of Astoria, people look to Wendy for answers.
It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.
Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.
Title: Lost in the Never Woods
Author: Aiden Thomas
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Date Published: March 23, 2021
Genre: YA Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retelling, Mystery
Date Read: March 23, 2021
Format: eBook (via NetGalley)
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Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas – Review
I haven’t read many retellings and they’re not something I usually pick up, but I knew I had to read Lost in the Never Woods after I adored Aiden Thomas’ debut novel Cemetery Boys last year. It can often feel like an author’s second book has a lot to live up to when a debut was so damn good, but Lost in the Never Woods didn’t fail to keep me hooked all the way through, and I loved it!
This book takes the story of Peter Pan and flips it on its head, adding so much more to the original story and exploring what actually happened when—and why—Wendy and her brothers went to Neverland when Wendy was a girl. Now, a few years later, Wendy is 18 and her brothers have been missing ever since… and now more children in the neighbourhood are being taken too. Why does Wendy have huge gaps in her memory from when she was 13? Where are her brothers and the other missing children? And who is this mysterious boy who keeps trying to get Wendy’s attention? Wendy has no idea who he is… or does she?
It was so cool to see the story of Peter Pan retold in a contemporary setting, with nods to the original story but becoming entirely its own. It deals with heavy themes like grief and trauma, and the story took some very dark turns that I definitely wasn’t expecting. I was hooked from the beginning and I was sucked right into the dark, twisty, and atmospheric tale that turns the idea of Peter Pan’s shadow into a terrifying character of its own.
It took me a little while to get into the story simply because I felt odd reading a story with all of the characters from the original Peter Pan story—Wendy, John, Michael, and Mr and Mrs Darling, for example—but I quickly found myself being sucked in and reading it as a unique story with a life of its own. Once the story got going, it kept a perfect pace and actually had my heart racing at one point where I was dying to see what would happen next.
If you love YA retellings, atmospheric stories with dark themes but glimmers of hope, and well-written characters that jump off the page and into your brain, then Lost in the Never Woods is the book for you!
(Recommendation: If you liked the dark, atmospheric setting and the mysterious, twisty story of Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand, you’ll love Lost in the Never Woods!)
Click here to see the full list of stops on the Lost in the Never Woods blog tour. Make sure you go and check out some of the other posts! Thanks so much to Xpresso Tours for organising the tour 🙂
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About Aiden Thomas
Aiden Thomas is a New York Times Bestselling author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, Oregon. As a queer, trans Latinx, Aiden advocates strongly for diverse representation in all media. Aiden’s special talents include: quoting The Office, winning Jenga, finishing sentences with “is my FAVORITE”, and killing spiders. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color.
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