The Wendy
The Tales of the Wendy series, Book 1
Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown
Trash Dogs Media LLC
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Like many of the foundlings who appeared overnight in 1700's London, Wendy Darling had no idea who her parents were or where she'd come from, but she does know where she wants to go: to sea, as captain of her own ship, living a life of bold adventure. Even though everyone tells her girls are good for nothing but marrying and mothering, she clings to her dream, learning navigation and fencing and other useful skills from a friend. At 17, Wendy takes her first step out into the world from the almshouse where she was raised when she joins the Home Office... but their mission is something she had never suspected. It turns out that England is under attack, and has been for years. Fiendish winged men known as the everlost raid and murder and steal away children, presumably to drink their blood. (All this is kept carefully under wraps, of course, lest the public panic.) Only women and dogs are sensitive to the smell of magic that precedes their arrival - and it's a toss-up which one is considered the more human to the men of the Home Office in general and their ruthless Captain, a man named Hook, in particular. Thus Wendy finds herself shipped off to Dover, but even though she proves herself worthy to the men in her platoon, she's still treated as a delicate and excitable object... until the day of their first everlost encounter. That's when she meets him, their leader, a mercurial young man whom she finds oddly enchanting and who, in turn, seems strangely enchanted with her: the one they call Peter Pan.
REVIEW: I knew, going into this, that it was a reshuffling/retelling of J. M. Barrie's classic children's story. I did not know just how tonally confused it would end up being, with canon and original characters randomly recast and sprinkled about in a story that never quite seems to get a bead on what it's aiming for.
It starts off quickly with a nice, breezy voice, establishing Wendy as a girl determined to take charge of her own destiny in defiance of everything 18th century England expects of young women... then it makes her so silly and internally inconsistent I was rolling my eyes at her more often than I was rooting for her. Or maybe my eyes rolled themselves; Wendy's facial features and body parts seem exceptionally prone to acting on their own, evidently without consulting her, in a literary trick that wore out its welcome long before the book ended. The authors also hammered home the "secret kiss in the corner of her mouth" line that Barrie used so sparingly, and with direct ties to the story arc and climax. Here, there's far less plot relevance to the term, and at least half the mentions of her face mention the "secret kiss" as a visible thing... maybe because every male (save Captain Hook) is irresistibly smitten. Yes, for all that the story tries to establish "the Wendy" as her own girl, forging her own destiny and earning the respect of her male peers, she is pretty much reduced to object status, a prize to be claimed and heart to be won, an animal to be coddled and patted on the head and not to be really taken seriously as a person. Nobody can think of her as a comrade and friend, evidently... not even Peter.
And here we get to one of the other major trouble spots: Peter Pan himself. The book tries to establish him as a possible romantic subject, but it runs into several stumbling blocks. First off, the canonical Peter Pan was inherently incapable of grown-up love; it was one of the defining features of his character. Secondly, the authors come at it with the same often-silly children's book voice that the rest of the story uses, making their attraction feel less like genuine chemistry or mystique and more like little children playing dress-up who blush and giggle and secretly cringe at the thought of cooties when forced to play-act gooey love stuff. Third... I have no idea, even by the end of the book, just what Peter and the everlost are in this world. They act like the lost boys, the perpetual kids playing pirate games and having adventures - but apparently they also raid England, kidnap children, and casually slaughter countless Home Office soldiers, all with the same tally-ho grins of their playacting, as though they don't get the concept of death at all. They also are described as having inhuman teeth and the ability to materialize hawk wings to fly with... though pixie dust still may be involved... sometimes... maybe...? The authors completely dance around the everlost, what they're doing, or why they're doing it - which makes no sense, given that they are Hook's sole obsession with the Home Office and Wendy is (sometimes) portrayed as a determined researcher who stops at nothing to get to the bottom of whatever subject she sets her mind to. (She's also aided by the only two nonwhite men in the entire book, who exist entirely to train the white English girl in service of her goals, which has some iffy racial connotations if you look at it for more than a second.) This is a massive hole in the middle of the story, made especially blatant when the whole plot centers on the everlost and Wendy's conflict when torn between her duty to England and Hook and her feelings when confronted with Peter in the flesh. The end is a jumble of whiplash loyalty shifts on the part of Wendy, concluding on a note that isn't particularly conclusive, though not a cliffhanger; it just sort of ends, unresolved, halfway through yet another tonal pivot, as though I'll automatically pick up the second volume to find out what's going on and who will claim the Wendy as the ultimate prize.
There were some nice moments and decent ideas swirling around in the depths of The Wendy. Unfortunately, my suspension of disbelief kept crashing into the ground.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Peter Pan (James M. Barrie) - My Review
Peter and the Starcatchers (Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson) - My Review
The Librarian: Little Boy Lost (Eric Hobbs) - My Review
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