The Wendy Review

Mini-Post by The Bookworm

Title: The Wendy

Author: Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown

Series: Tales of the Wendy

Pages: 294

Summary: London. 1783. Wendy Darling is an orphan, living in an overcrowded almshouse, ridiculed for believing in a future she can never have. More than anything in the world, she wants to be the captain of a ship. But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?

By 1789, she’s sixteen, old enough to be sold into service as a dressmaker or a servant. When she learns the Home Office is accepting a handful of women into its ranks, she jumps at the chance, joining the fight against the most formidable threat England has ever faced. Magic.

But the secret service isn’t exactly what she had hoped. Accompanied by a re-imagined cast of the original Peter Pan, Wendy soon discovers that her dreams are as far away as ever, that choosing sides isn’t as simple as she thought, and that the only man who isn’t blinded by her gender… might be her nation’s greatest enemy.

Bookworm Rating: A-

Target Audience: Young Adult

Story Notes: The story begins by introducing us to Wendy and her rather depressing life at an almshouse. One day she meets a strange man who tells her about his exciting life at sea. She dreams of growing up and joining the navy and convinces the man to teach her about it. She learns how to read the stars, all about sailors knots, and swordsmanship.

The only problem is, girls are not welcomed into the Navy no matter how skilled they are. So she answers and advertisement to join the British secret service to fight against a mysterious threat.

While more exciting than a job as a seamstress or a maid, she still written off because she is a woman. Truth be told she probably wouldn’t even have her job if not for the fact that women and dogs are the only ones capable of sensing magic. And one day Wendy does.

Her post in Dover is attacked by the “everlost” and that is where Wendy meets Peter and his small army of winged men. When she jumps into the battle she manages to capture Peter’s attention and soon he is following her wherever she goes. Including Captain Hook’s estate where Wendy is forced to stay and pretend to be Hook’s fiance!

As you can imagine Peter’s persistence, Hook’s hatred, and Wendy’s stubbornness lead to all sorts of misadventures

Writing Style: This is a very well written book. It manages to suck you in from the very first page. It is just fun to read and the characters are interesting and well developed. The world is explained in an almost visual way and this makes it easier to know what is going on. This book is also pretty clever and a bit witty.

Weaknesses: This is very much the first book of a series. Sky and Brown spent a long time letting us know what is going on and setting up plot lines for future books. While the writing was usually interesting enough to keep me interesting this could slow things down a little.

Strengths: This book was very entertaining. I was always wondering what was going to happen next and how Wendy was going to keep both Peter and Hook from becoming too suspicious. This lead to a lot of the tension in the book and I loved how clever Wendy (and the writing) could be.

It was also interesting to see her be a bit selfish. It can be rare to have a likable main character who has mostly selfish motives; but Wendy pulls it off. She wants to sail on a ship and have grand adventures and she’s going to get what she wants one way or another.

The “romance” in this book was also fun to follow and I’m interested in seeing where it goes.

Final Thoughts: If you’ve read some of my other reviews you know I love retellings. And this is a really good one. I loved reading this book and was kinda upset every time I had to focus on something else. It definitely isn’t just the same old Peter Pan story we are used to but it also doesn’t abandon the source material completely. You can see the traits of each original character in the “new” ones and it’s fun to see them a bit differently. If you like retellings and/or strong female characters definitely give this one a try!