Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise

 

Thank you, #netgalley, for the ARC of #WendyDarling!

The short version:
This story is absolutely perfect!  It takes the main element of Peter Pan that I always found bothersome and exposed it for the nightmare it is.  Told between 1904 Neverland, 1917-1920 London, and "present day" (1931) London and Neverland, Wendy, Darling tells the story of Wendy and her family and the repercussions of her initial Neverland visit, her memories, and her brothers' lack of memories.

The lengthier, rambling version:
Was no one else horrified reading JM Barrie's Peter Pan watching John and Michael forget home, their parents, everything about their previous life?  No?  Just me? 

Well, that always bothered me.  A lot.  For a story that holds a very dear place in my heart, one of the first things I remember about the book is how unsettling it can be.

A.C. Wise takes my discomforts with the original story, and exploits them for the horror it truly is.  Wendy remembers home when she goes to Neverland.  Wendy remembers Neverland when she returns home.  Her brothers do not.  Wendy does not live "happily ever after" after Neverland, but spends a bit of time in an asylum and is eventually married off.  When her daughter Jane is the age that Wendy was when she visited Neverland, Peter shows up to reclaim Wendy, and steals Jane away to Neverland (mistaking her for Wendy).

So many Peter Pan retellings rebrand Peter as the villain.  This book is no exception, but it is brilliantly done.  Peter's a villain, because he is truly a child who has no sense of thinking beyond himself.  He is exactly what would happen if you let a little boy make his imaginings a reality with no concern for the world outside of himself.  IT IS UTTER CHAOS.

I received this book as an ARC from #NetGalley, but didn't cancel my preorder because I needed this book to physically occupy space on my shelf.  It was just THAT GOOD.