Darling

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Darling

K. Ancrum

A teen girl finds herself lost on a dangerous adventure in this YA thriller by the acclaimed author of The Wicker King and The Weight of the Stars—reimagining Peter Pan for today’s world.

On Wendy Darling’s first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He’s dizzying, captivating, beautiful—so she agrees to join him for a night on the town.

Wendy thinks they’re heading to a party, but instead they’re soon running in the city’s underground. She makes friends—a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies—the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister secrets start coming to light. Can Wendy find the courage to survive this night—and make sure everyone else does, too?

Acclaimed author K. Ancrum has re-envisioned Peter Pan with a central twist that will send all your previous memories of J. M. Barrie’s classic permanently off to Neverland.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

(3.5 / 5) What did I just read? This was a whirlwind. It’s a Peter Pan retelling. When I think of Peter Pan, I think of fantasy worlds and taking care of kids lovingly. If you’re the same, get that all out of your head cause this is very, very different. It’s edgy and dark and you won’t see the twists coming.

Peter is dark and manipulative. He’s mysterious with an edge of dangerous, but not in a good way. Everyone seems to admire him and fear him at the same time. I knew something was going on but I just couldn’t tell what exactly. Wendy gets wrangled into this whole mystery, and is she just really naive? I wanted to smack some sense into her many times. She got herself in some seriously stupid situations and then just sticks by them cause they ask nicely? Even when she can tell it’s very dangerous? (cue the smack upside the head!)

Then a BOMBSHELL is dropped and it changes the entire feel of the book. What just happened? I’m reeling. Normally in a book I loooove this. It turned dark and sinister and serious. Very serious. It was so crazy and unexpected that I’m feeling let down and disappointed. 

I admit I was very entertained and read this quickly but I’m left feeling unfulfilled. Peter Pan is a hard story to retell. It’s a happy, fun story with so much innocence. When absolutely everything about it is changed, it makes me feel unsettled. 

All the points to Ancrum for the diversity in this book. I’ve never had so many ethnicities with lgbtq+ included.

I actually believe I will be in the minority on my opinion for this book. I think if I would’ve had an inkling as to the direction of the book, that I wouldn’t have been so blindsided and would’ve liked it much more.

Content Summary: The F words were excessive and felt very out of place. There were very few other curse words so those F words stuck out a lot. Also, if rated R movies get rated R for excessive F words, why are books like this allowed to be YA? The book is innocent enough until the twist at the end and then it turns into more of a murder mystery. The intimacy is very tame. Two young women are in a relationship and while they are close and affectionate, I don’t remember them even kissing.

Thank you to Fierce Reads for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. The book releases June 22, 2021.

Detailed Content Review

Language 

F***- 35

H***- 4

S***- 7

A**- 2

B****- 6

D***- 1

Bas****- 1

Religious Cursing

J****- 2

Chr***- 2

G**- 29

L***- 1

Derogatory terms etc-

Middle finger 

Dick 

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A woman tells about drinking wine in a group when she was a teen.

A young woman smokes a pipe. 

A young man carries an unlit cigarette and later smokes. 

A young man sips wine. 

A man is smoking. 

At a party, a young man tells a young woman not to take anything (mint, vape etc) from anyone because his friend did once and it was laced with hard drugs. 

Two teens share a cigarette.

A young man drinks a shot of alcohol. Many teens drink.

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

*Mild LGBTQ+ aspects included* 

A young woman says she’s gay. 

“…or do you want to get fingered in the back of a club…”

Two young women are in a relationship.

Teens visit a group of drag queens who perform on stage. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

A woman tells a story about a teen being found killed, then placed in an open grave when she was younger. 

A young woman tells of a policeman tasing a young boy. A young man tackles the policeman and smashes his hands with a rock. The man needed one hand amputated and the other was severely injured. 

A young woman is grabbed and taken. Her head is covered and something shoved into her mouth to muffle her screams. 

A young man uses a slingshot to hit a policeman in the head, knocking him out. Another young man throws a small Molotov cocktail-type bomb into a car. The car explodes. A young woman frees many who are tied with zip ties, waiting to be officially arrested. Another Molotov explodes. 

Many teens are handcuffed and taken away after a party. 

**SPOILER** A man allegedly murders foster kids when they turn 18.

A group of teens believe a man shoved a man off a train, killing him.  They believe he has killed many more. 

A man grabs a young woman’s arm and slams her against the wall. 

A man shows two teens the body of a man. 

A man is shot in the back of the legs. He throws a knife at a young woman. A young man hits a man’s face with a bar. A large cracking sound is heard. 

Potentially Intense Themes

**Any quotes from the book are taken from the advance copy and therefore may not be fully accurate or correctly compare to the final copy of the book.

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.