Peter Darling

Huh. Not quite sure what to say about this book, which came highly recommended from several reviewers whose opinion I greatly respect. It sure was a very different take on the Peter Pan characters, and several scenes were beautifully written. But it didn't really hang together for me, and the abrupt personality and behavioral changes in the main characters were rendered somewhat awkwardly. I couldn't get past the fact that both MCs killed lots of people, even though the victims turned out to be "not real." I'm a big fan of enemies-to-lovers, but the change from trying to kill each other to wanting to kiss each other was not convincing.

Creative and unique enough that I would consider reading more by this author.

Peter Pan left Neverland ten years ago, willing to give growing up a try, even if it was in a world where he never felt comfortable. But they say time will always tell, and in this case it told Peter that he could not leave his truth behind. So he returns to Neverland, only to find that the game has changed. In fact, there is far more danger than fun. And when he crosses paths with his arch-nemesis, Captain Hook, he finds that time has also brought about new feelings that he never experienced before...

I love a well-written adaptation. And I love fantasy. So this is an absolutely winning combination for me as a reader. This is also the first work by Austin Chant that I have read, but I am willing to label myself a fan. The complexity of show more the characters, the slow and organic reveals, and the ways of being true to the original while telling a new story demonstrate a skill in storytelling. We definitely need more well-written stories with transgender characters like this to reflect the diversity of human experience. And while this is a fantasy story, the humanity is universal. show less

When I first heard about this book, I laughed. But then it refused to leave me, and I knew I had to read it. And it's.... kind of outstanding. The idea of Peter Pan being trans, and that Wendy Darling is his birth name, is absolutely brilliant, and the story that emerges between Hook and Pan feels entirely beautiful. It is short, and although I would love more, I feel like the story that needs to be told is told within its pages. I loved it and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes rewrites and fantasy and trans narratives.

This story is just plain fun, while also managing to be shockingly heart wrenching. It's a great and original take on Peter Pan and Captain Hook, and why the two found themselves in Neverland, at each other's throats. The rhythm and character building perfectly evoke the original Peter Pan, and the original world of Neverland is brought back to life in exquisite detail. I'm not even sure how to properly sell this to you because I can't put all the joy into words, but here's my attempt: I caught myself thinking about it while I worked, wishing I could read it. It's that good and that much fun.

If you like fairy-tale retellings, and happy endings this is a must read. My one complaint is that I need a tiny follow-up story of the two a year show more from the ending.

Warning for mention of homophobia, transphobia, and threatening to hospitalize a transboy for who he is. show less

I can't believe there is a gender queer retelling of Peter Pan and nobody told me. Wendy escaping to Neverland to become Peter Pan to be the boy he's always meant to be is such an awesome concept. Neverland being a place of dissociation where multiple people can escape to and change the narrative of the place is genius. Throw in an enemies to lovers trope and I'm so sold. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

A trans retelling of Peter Pan wherein Wendy Darling creates Peter Pan in childhood games as the identity that best expresses who he really is. Neverland is a magical made-up land where he goes to live a better life, or so he thinks. Much of the story is about Peter (and Captain Hook, who is one of the only other real people in Neverland, most of the rest of them (the Lost Boys, the pirates) being companions Peter and James (Hook) have made up to keep them company and go on adventures with them) remembering his past (Neverland has a way of making you forget), realizing that Neverland is a hiding place, and understanding that if he wants to live life fully as Peter, he needs to return to the world. I love the idea of this book and this show more interpretation of Neverland is fascinating and feels right somehow, but the book never quite came together for me. I spent so much time in the beginning trying to figure out what was going on, and I was constantly wishing for more and longer scenes between Hook and Peter. I did, however, very much like the end, in which Peter and James get an HEA. I *am* glad I read it, and I will likely look for more by Austin Chant. show less

In this retelling of Peter Pan, Wendy Darling is really Peter Pan, a transgender man who tries to live as Wendy but after ten years decides to embrace his identity and flies back to Neverland to escape the strictures and constraints of his family (who can only see him as Wendy). Neverland has changed a lot in his absence: the Lost Boys have a new leader, Ernest, and they and the pirates led by Captain Hook are living under a truce. Peter upsets this peaceful equilibrium when he goes back to war against Hook, who finds himself happy to be in battle again. Their conflict results in a lot of collateral damage to the pirates, the Lost Boys, and the fae who also live in Neverland. And that's just the first third of the book.

This story show more follows the conventions of fan fiction, where the reader is expected to know the source material and much is left unexplained. While I'm usually very leery of fanfic, writing it to "queer" the original story (or subvert it in some other way), strikes me as a great use of the medium. However, the extent to which the original can bear the freight of the changes varies. Kirk and Spock gives the slash writer a lot of material to work with. Here, the outcome is more mixed.

Making Wendy and Peter the same person is brilliant, and on first glance it fits with the original story nicely. But creating a romance between Peter and Hook, at least a healthy one the reader can believe in, that's a harder sell for me, and the book doesn't pull it off, for a variety of reasons.

The biggest problem is that Peter Pan has characteristics which are understandable in a boy who never grows up but appalling in an adult, and in the first third of the story Peter exhibits these characteristics. He's selfish, thoughtless, and thoughtlessly violent. People and faeries die because of his impulses and desires. In other words, while Hook is technically the "villain," Peter is the one who is the furthest from being Hero Material. The text makes an attempt to explain it but I didn't buy it, because this *is* who the character is.

Then the story takes a big turn and becomes much more of a standard romance. Peter and Hook are separated from everyone else and trapped together in a cave, Peter's memories start to impinge on his single-minded pursuit of his own preferences, and he becomes a more rounded character. There is a big reveal about Neverland which sets the stage for the Peter/James (Hook) romance. At this point the story diverges quite a bit from the original and becomes its own thing, only some of which makes sense. The worldbuilding, like the characters, leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how it actually works and what is "real" in the world and what is not. The fae appear and disappear at times that seem mostly convenient to the plot; they don't have a coherent storyline even though they are crucial to Neverland. Ernest, the new Lost Boy leader, seems important but then he mostly vanishes.

The romance between Peter and Hook is quite sweet, and it follows the beats and tropes of a standard romance novel. Too standard is some ways: the one explicit scene recalled a lot of m/f virgin-meets-gentle-expert deflowerings to me. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that it felt familiar in ways that made it less interesting. But in order to buy the attraction between Peter and Hook I had to erase the original characters from my memory, because the originals are emphatically NOT good people or the kind of people you think can have a positive and fulfilling relationship. They were far enough OOC by this point that I felt trapped between a fanfic with characters who didn't work and an original fic with underdeveloped characters. Which was a shame, because there were lots of suggestions of what could have been.

The ending didn't help. I just flat out didn't believe in the HEA. The whole point of being in Neverland was to escape the miseries of the real world, for a number of the characters including these two. So how is (view spoiler) One of the defining aspects of queer life has been the making of family through like-minded and sympathetic people. The novel completely whiffed on that, which seemed particularly odd given how crushing loneliness was for these characters.

On the technical stuff: the writing was mostly fine. There were a few copyediting errors but less than I expected given criticisms I've heard of this press. At times modern grammatical constructions (e.g. "like" instead of "as") sat oddly next to period language, and at other times the style seemed overly simplified, as if it were intended for a young adult rather than adult audience (the book read as YA to me despite the one moderately explicit sex scene). There was one inconsistency that I couldn't figure out, though:

SPOILER

In the sex scene Hook seems to have two hands. I reread it a couple of times and he had his hands in two separate places on Peter's body, and neither of them could have been the hook. But in the end of the story we discover that James has a missing hand. So this is either an editing error or I'm misreading.

SPOILER

Bottom line: The trans storyline and the Neverland worldbuilding were wonderfully imaginative, and parts of the romance were sweet, but the execution didn't convince me. show less