Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Title: Tiger Lily

Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Release Date: July 3, 2012

Publisher: HarperTeen

Page Number: 292

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

 

Synopsis: Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

My Review

I had never heard of a retelling of Peter Pan, so when I heard of this I knew I had to pick it up. And after just finishing Peter Pan, I wanted more of Neverland, so I thought it would be awesome if I read Tiger Lily. And I was right, because this book was unlike any love story I have read so far.

 

Our narrator in this book isn't Tiger Lily, but Tinker Bell. I thought at first that because Tiger Lily wasn't the narrator it would take away from the story, and it kind of did at first. But then you find out that Tinker Bell can hear peoples thoughts, so you do get to hear some of Tiger Lily's emotions. However, I would have liked more, and because we didn't get a lot of her emotions, I felt like I couldn't connect with her fully. I felt sympathetic about everything she was going through, and while I had a connection, I would have wanted a better one. In Tiger Lily, we get to see what Tinker Bell was like, and I thought that was a really interesting take on the story, because it explains why she was so mean towards Wendy. As for Peter, he is still the same cocky, independent boy from the movies, but in Tiger Lily he has more of a softer side, and I loved that part of him.

 

This is by far one of my favorite books of this year for two reasons. 1. It is a retelling of Peter Pan, which is something I had never heard of. And 2. It is one of the best love stories I have ever read. The love in this book is so pure, and it's not like that insta-love stuff you read about so much in YA. This was a gradual love that just kept growing, but at the same time there were restraints. These two didn't have it perfect either, which is what made it so real. They had problems, they had fights, and they had times where they didn't want to see each other. I adored this book and the last 100 pages when Wendy comes into the story just shredded my heart, because you knew what was going to happen if you had seen a film or read the book.

 

I loved how Tiger Lily was different from the original story, but it described why and how somethings happened differently. I thought it was a fresh take on a well loved story, and after reading Peter Pan, I felt like the differences were awesome.

 

Jodi Lynn Anderson, if I gave a prize for the most beautiful writing, it would be yours. This book has the most beautiful, poetic writing I have ever read. Every few chapters a passage would come up and its would be written beautifully. The description of this book was also beautiful, and it was written so poetically that I was sucked into the story and I didn't want to let it go. When this book ended I wanted to cry, but I also wanted to smile because Jodi Lynn Anderson had wrapped things up, but not in a little box, so there was still room for people to imagine what came next.

 

Rating: 5/5 worms

This book is my new favorite love story and one of my favorites from this year! Definitely check it out!