Girl, Stolen

This was such a fascinating read! It was thrilling and fast-paced, I literally gasped a few times! The story was told from alternating view points and sometimes this can be distracting, but here it really worked well. Both main characters were really well written. Cheyenne, who's blindness is fairly new (she wasn't born that way, she's been blind for three years) and I felt that was very authentically presented. From the author's notes and thank yous, you can see she really took the time to research this thoroughly and that definitely shows. It added depth to her character that she could still envision the world around her and had also developed the heightened senses that sometimes come with blindness. Cheyenne was very aware of her show more limitations, but pulled out all her other strengths to survive this ordeal.

I liked seeing the situation from Griffin's point of view as well. Yes, he steals the car and makes the bad choice to not let Cheyenne go immediately, but as soon as you get a glimpse at his reason for making these decisions, you can't help but be a little sympathetic to his situation. He is not at all what he seems to be at first, and once you get to know this character, you start to root for him to turn it around and do something heroic to make it right. I just wanted to see him get cut a little break.

Having such real and complex characters really added to the punch of this story---you really get wrapped up in the terror, the excitement, and the hope that everything turns out alright! Highly recommend this one! show less

Girl Stolen by April Henry is a thriller that really pulls you in. It’s about Cheyenne, a blind teen who gets kidnapped and has to rely on her other senses, but not sight to survive. Her perspective makes the story feel intense, as if you’re right there with her every step of the way. You get a mix of tension and moments that show Cheyenne’s courage and cleverness. Some side characters aren’t expanded on, which would make the book more intriguing if they were, but Cheyenne’s voice and the story’s action make up for it. This is one of those books that’s hard to put down. Cheyenne has alot of character development that happens almost against her will. Getting kidnapped triggered her fight or flight, and she chose to fight. I show more think this shows her courage to stay alive because she can't trust anyone but herself. There is a theme of peer pressure when it comes to Griffin and his need to follow what his abusive family tells him to do, even when he disagrees. Over time, Griffin does listen to his inner voice and goes against his family to help Cheyenne. This story really makes the reader stop and think, "What would I do in this situation?" show less

Wow, what a roller-coaster of a book! Cheyenne's plight was so compelling I didn't want to put this book down. I cannot imagine being blind, but this book really pulled me into Cheyenne's head and her world, and I pictured everything through her mind. Everything that would happen in the book, I would imagine it happening when all you could do was hear it, not see it. What a scary world that poor Cheyenne is pulled into.

The characters in this book were great. Cheyenne was vulnerable, but she was so strong and resilient in the face of these dangerous men. She never gives up the fight, even when she's made them believe that she has. Griffin is a troubled kid that you can't help but feel sorry for. He's trying to be a good kid, but with a show more Dad that makes you steal for a living, that's not so easy. Roy, TJ, and Jimbo were so easy to hate. There was so many times that I wanted to jump into the pages and pummel them myself. I hated them passionately, and that is just a testament to the wonderful writing.

April Henry really created a rich world, one that you can imagine every detail of. As I imagined Cheyenne running through the forest, I could feel the branches catching my face, the cold stinging my fingers and toes. It was a great ride. Although, I liked the way the book was wrapping up, my only complaint would be that it ended a little too abruptly. It could really use another paragraph there at the end.

Overall it was a great read that I definitely recommend! show less

Someone passed me this ARC earlier last year, and I sat down to skim it...and was immediately caught up in the lightning-fast action and tense atmosphere.

Cheyenne is sleeping in the car while her stepmother gets medicine for her pneumonia. Suddenly, the car is stolen and Cheyenne along with it. Griffin just needed the car for his dad, he hadn't meant to kidnap anybody. But he did. Now things are getting complicated fast - Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne's dad is wealthy, his men have a grudge against the rich girl who's had everything they haven't, and Griffin is, as he has always been, helpless before his dad's anger.

And Cheyenne is blind. Still trying to accept the accident that took her sight and her mom, Cheyenne has to draw show more even more on her inner strength to survive yet another ordeal.

This is a fast-moving thriller with deftly drawn characters and plenty of excitement, drama, and mystery.

Verdict: Hand this one to teens - male and female - who like tightly plotted thrillers and are fans of Gail Giles and Todd Strasser.

ISBN: 9780805090055; Published October 2010; ARC passed on from another librarian last summer. show less

A strong, compelling read. Henry's prose is clean and uncluttered -- she has faith in her story and she just plain tells it.

We learn on page 3 that the main character is blind. We also learn that she's being kidnapped in a car-theft gone bad. I was very skeptical when I realized this was the premise. Seriously, do all blind characters have to be gorgeous young women? (I've ranted about that in other reviews.)

But Henry manages, seemingly without trying, to make Cheyenne not "the blind girl," but a girl who is blind. Yes, this is a significant part of her life. How could it not be? But so is the fact that her father is incredibly wealthy. So is the fact that her mother was killed in the same car accident that blinded Cheyenne. (Henry show more nails the medical science on this one, which I appreciated.) So is the fact that she's named after the tribe she's descended from, though she doesn't consider herself Native American enough "to really matter." Which of these is most significant? Or do we stop thinking about people as categories, and start accepting them as a messy mix of circumstance and choice?

Henry doesn't just make us care about Cheyenne (and Griffin, her young kidnapper) -- she makes us interested in them, which I think is harder. I have a bad cold and desperately need distracting. This book made me forget my own troubles for a few gripping hours. show less

I was very excited when this book came in. Being new to Goodreads' giveaways, this was the first one I won and received. Opening the package, I pulled out a short, 224 page book with the cover art as seen above. The teaser for the book is that 16 year old Cheyenne Wilder, blind for three years, is kidnapped after begging her stepmother to leave the keys in the ignition of their high-end SUV while she goes into the pharmacy to pick up Cheyenne's prescription for pneumonia.

This is the epitome of a comedy of errors. Griffin, the kidnapper, doesn't realize that she's in the back until he's driving the SUV out of the parking lot. He also doesn't realize that she's blind until it is too late. His father, Roy, along with his two sidekicks show more Jimbo and TJ, want to keep her for ransom, while all Griffin wants to do is hit the delete button on the day.

Fortunately, there is no unrealistic friendship or romantic development between Cheyenne and Griffin; while predictable in some moments, this was not one of them. Both Cheyenne's and Griffin's point of views are told in such a way that is not distracting, and Henry's writing style is interesting and will keep you wanting more.

There were a few problems: One, there are some editing mistakes--the publisher needs to proof one more time, though I think this is normal as an advance copy. Second, you will find that you do not really care about the characters. It's a wonderful read, I found it immensely entertaining, but I do not want to necessarily read a sequel to it. I think that had there been a little more substance to the character development, this would have been a five-star book.

All in all, however, this was an excellent book and I recommend it to all lovers of Young Adult fiction. show less

In reading Girl, Stolen, I was reminded of two bits of pop culture: Excess Baggage and Wait Until Dark. The first film, a pretty terrible movie starring Alicia Silverstone and Antonio Banderas, tells the story of a poor little rich girl who, in an effort to get daddy's attention, fakes a kidnapping by locking herself in a car's trunk, only to have that car actually stolen. Then she cooks up a romance and a scheme with her accidental captor. Wait Until Dark, quite differently focuses on a blind woman, played by Audrey Hepburn who some thugs suspect of having a doll stuffed with drugs. She has to try to escape this situation with her life. Put these two together and you've sort of got Girl, Stolen.

Of course, comparing a book to other show more stories really limits it, so I want to stress that there's more going on here; in making these comparisons, I do not intend to imply that Henry's story is entirely derivative by any means. Henry did a marvelous job telling this story, keeping everything suspenseful and scary, but not venturing into melodramatic territory in the slightest. She does not try to make anything more difficult than it already is for the sake of extra drama.

So much YA that I've read, usually in the paranormal genre, centers on a heroine, gifted with supernatural powers that enable her to do absolutely anything, yet she still ends up relying on other people to save her. Your powers or your weaknesses are only what you allow them to be. Cheyenne has been blind since an accident three years ago damaged her brain, leaving her with functioning eyes but a mind unable to read the messages. Now almost entirely blind, she relies on her cane or her seeing eye dog, Phantom.

On the day in question, Cheyenne's step-mom convinced Cheyenne the dog should stay home, since they were not going very far. While her step-mother went into the pharmacy to get the antibiotics to treat Cheyenne's pneumonia, Cheyenne rested in the backseat. Then the car got stolen. Griffin had no idea she was in the car, but, once he got home to his piece of shit father, she becomes even more useful to them than the jacked Escalade. Cheyenne's father runs Nike corporation, and she can be ransomed for a lot of money.

In this situation, I cannot imagine I would be capable of anything other than some snarky comebacks and some seriously menacing death glares. Cheyenne, sick with pneumonia, running a fever, tiny, and blind never stops planning escapes. She is such an incredibly powerful character, able to make the best of any situation, and to use her strengths to best advantage. Where some heroines have endless amounts of power and don't use it, Cheyenne makes the most out of everything she has. I respect her so much, and Henry for writing a heroine with a disability and not making her pitiable, but a figure of strength.

Girl, Stolen weighs in at only 220 pages, but packs an emotional punch. Dark, scary, and investigating whether Griffin is a redeemable figure, I was sucked into this novel and not let go until I finished the last page. If you're tired of young adult fiction focused on romance and whiny heroines, Girl, Stolen is the perfect break. show less