While I am not the biggest fan of the classic Peter Pan, the idea of a retelling of Peter Pan set in space was just too appealing to pass on. Unfortunately the book couldn’t quite deliver in the areas that I wanted it to.

This books seems fine at first glance , the writing is solid for instance, but once you start looking a little closer a lot of things fall apart for me. The world building for instance. We get the academy, some time on the space ships and the planet Neverland. But I have very little idea of our society so far as this is set in the future. The only glimpses we get is from Wendy’s parents who made me feel like this was more set in history than in the future. Her mother had a gathering at home when she called for instance and it was all about being prim and proper. I also don’t understand a world where cadets straight out of the academy get a captain role and have a first mission that is a rescue mission, and with a skeleton crew at that. I know this is YA but come one. Can we be realistic?

There were some things I liked. Smee being an artificial intelligence. Tinkerbell being a nanobot. Wendy being the one in charge. Those elements were super interesting and if only the author had expended on those things further instead of grasping onto the basics of Peter Pan. The Disney Peter Pan if I might add. The plot consisted of Peter being stranded with Hook in Neverland, Wendy and her crew being stranded on Neverland. Someone of her crew being captures by the natives. Wendy being kidnapped by Hook. Peter coming to her rescue. Does that sound familiar? Because that is basically the sequence of events in the Disney Peter Pan if my memory serves me right. And it did not get dressed up right.

One thing that made me question a lot was the decision to make the natives green of skin color but keep al lot of the references to the Indians that the original and Disney Peter Pan had. It was a poor choice I think. She could have moved them way further away from that or could have at least moved away from the basic stereotype by deepening out the natives culture which barely happened. Also the lost boys were just fodder handing around Peter. The twins were only called the twins. Like how can you be with someone for a 100 years and not know their name?

And quite honestly there is more, but these things are what stand out to me the most. As said, at first glance this book seems quite solid so if you are looking for just a quick read you should totally go for this. But if you are looking for a bit more in your Peter Pan retelling, I don’t think this is going to be the book for you.

Space pirates and mermaids and deities Oh My! Welcome to a thoroughly entertaining space romp. Fair warning: I am a HUGE sucker for (good) Space Operas so this might be a bit biased.

This Peter Pan reimagining could have gone horribly wrong, especially due to how fundamentally different it is from the original, BUT thankfully it did not disappoint. This was one retelling that was solid on all fronts. The writing was well executed. So much so that I will definitely be looking for more of J.M. Sullivan's worlds to visit in the future. The characters, though not particularly deep, made up for their substance deficiency in spades with their entertainment value. To complete the trifecta of awesomeness that I believe is imperative to have when creating a truly successful read was its plot. It was fun to see how each character was revamped and even more fun guessing how my favorite parts from the original book would translate in a totally different environment. Every time I came across common threads that tied together the original and retold stories I was elated. There were common places and names and dialogue to boot. We even get to witness some crowing.

It wasn't just Peter's POV though. Multi POVs can easily make or break a books' flow but here it worked. It worked so well that I happened to fall in love with characters that I could not connect with in the original story. Three such characters were Wendy, Michael and John. This new and improved Wendy was a kick ass Captain that was extremely intelligent, more than physically capable and an all around female force to be reckoned with. She, John and Michael, who are not related in this re-envisioning, were a beautifully cohesive trio. Both John and Michael were reshaped into VERY clever/barely recognizable young men which rendered them instantly likeable. The tertiary characters were also alluring, even without full dimensionality. I loved Tinc as futuristic tech instead of an annoying fairy and even Smee got a technological upgrade.... SO fun!

What fell flat for me was the romantic element. It felt extraneous and disjointed. I hope this will be rectified in future installments because it really did come off as forced and an afterthought.

Overall: This book was a clever, unique, transportive space Gaunt that I enjoyed immensely. I am definitely looking forward to getting my hands on the next book in the series ASAP. I reccomend this to lovers of Futuristic Space Opera Retellings with Fantastical elements and pirates... SPACE PIRATES!! Sounds like a niche market but if you're a fan of any of those genres, you won't be disappointed.

~ Enjoy

*** I was given a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ***

This book is a promising start but could use some improvements.

I'm a sucker for fairytale retellings, even if I haven't yet gotten through Cinder and the others. So when I saw this on Netgalley I knew that I had to give it a chance to see how the author had approached such a familiar and beloved tale.

There are some aspects of this book that I loved. The tech was one of them, though I'll fully admit from the start that I don't know enough about the science to question any of it. That I'll leave to other reviewers more skilled than I! Taking a traditional tale and setting it among technology and seeing an author's creativity go to work is one of the things that I love about reading, particularly retellings set in the future. It's amazing how natural it felt to see the characters in a futuristic setting, more so than you might expect.

Secondly, I really loved the take on Wendy in this. She's not simply the gentle sister that the original story introduced us to (though yes, I do know that she was in charge in more ways than one, and brave in her own right)! This book takes that to a new level, though, making her a cadet and then a Captain in her own right, which I adored. I loved being able to see a different side of this traditional character, and the different take on just how she and Peter meet.

So what didn't I like? To be honest, in some ways the book was just *too* similar to the original. There are quite a number of changes, most evidenced in the plot. I just wish that the author had felt brave enough to push that even further. A retelling doesn't have to be so closely based on the original, in fact sometimes that can be a distraction and I found that to be the case in this. I wish that the similarities had been more subtle, serving as less of a 'oh hey, do you remember that this is a Peter Pan retelling? No really, this is a Peter Pan retelling'. Towards the end of the book I found that it got better, but the existence of some of the original - and famous - lines kind of threw me back out.

While Wendy's perspective was rather well done, I found Peter's to be lacking a bit, though this was more towards the beginning of the book. The beginning also suffered from a writing style that seemed a bit stop and start - it seemed as though the author improved throughout the course of the book, which is fantastic, but I would have liked to see the beginning edited a little bit.

The romance also seemed a bit shoehorned in, in some respects. I have no objection to romance, but if the series continues I hope more depth is put into it as so far it seems mostly based on simple attraction.

All in all, I would say that this is an acceptable start to what seems to be a series, and I'd at least be willing to give any future books a shot to see how they go.

This story reminded me a lot of the season of Once Upon a Time where the setting had a lot to do with neverland and pan. There were a lot of similarities and differences. But it was still good. It was just one of those de ja vu moments.
I am a sucker for retellings so I was interested to see where this one was going to go.

I haven't picked up anything Peter Pan inspired in a while so when I came across this one I had to check it out. The story is immersive and has a good balance of new story material with the familiarity of Neverland. All the cool elements combined - it's a pretty interesting read!

It was a lovely tale and one I would pass on to a friend and recommend to students. A quick and fun read. Thank you for the chance to enjoy it!

confession: i love retellings and reimaginings, and i say this knowing how hard it is to do one right. j.m. sullivan doesn't QUITE hit the mark on second star, but it's a worthwhile read either way! i admit to being biased in the beginning, as a space opera version of peter pan sounds completely made for me, and i went into this fully expecting to enjoy it. thankfully, it was a fun ride, even with that heavy burden of expectation! there are some delightful touches here, such as tinkerbell being depicted as a nanobot with too much personality, and wendy as the captain of her own ship is too good to ignore.

the plotline essentially follows the original peter pan stories beat for beat though, which made it easy to predict. i honestly would've like to see more creativity. furthermore, there were several things that felt shallow. for example, we are often TOLD that this peter is capricious and somewhat wicked like our original pan, but we rarely (if ever) see him acting that way. a retelling should be able to stand in its own right in my opinion, and second star could've used some more fleshing out.

i enjoyed our multiple povs, although our heroes suffer from the obligatory YA insta-love and love triangle problem, and there were a few instances were we switched from peter to wendy (and vice versa) within a few pages. it gave me whiplash at times, and once again, i think sullivan could stand to let the characters breathe more, and give us more time in their heads. this book is effectively all action, which makes it a quick read, but it left me wishing for more - not the WORST problem to have, in all fairness.

still, despite those minor issues, i breezed through book in an evening. thank you for netgalley, the author, and the publisher for loaning me a copy in exchange for a review, and for anyone who loves retellings as much as i do, this one is well worth a shot!

Second Star is an okay read. I think I'm not really a fan of Peter Pan. I just couldn't get interested enough to really enjoy this one.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was caught between 2 stars and 3, but finally decided on two. The writing was average, it didn't really hook me in. It reminded me of my writing, which is bad because my writing is terrible and should never be published for the masses and priced. There were also frequent grammatical errors, which kinda leads me to ask if this book was edited or not before publishing.

The romance, I felt, was also cringey. "Oh my god her eyes are so beautiful" "Oh my god his hair is so red". Never before have I rolled my eyes so much in a book. I told myself that this is YA; of course the romance is going to be cringe, but I remember reading other YA books that had much better romance written into them. The author could have done better if she spent more time on the part where they're all in Neverland, but this all felt too shoehorned in.

I am also needlessly annoyed by the cover of this book. Nothing about it screams "Peter Pan". I don't even know if the girl on the cover exists in the book, Wendy was definitely not described to have purple hair, also where are her "golden flecked green eyes"? You might be able to tell how annoyed I was hearing that so many times, but I feel like my annoyance is justified. The cover is just misleading. It drew me to the book, but the story was not what I would have expected from the cover. It would have made more sense if they had a red-haired boy on the cover, I don't know why they didn't.

Overall, it could have been worse, but there's not much of a gap between that. It could have been a lot better. I feel that if the author spent a few more months just editing and writing the last part more, instead of rushing the romance and Stjarnin (I was VERY disappointed at how small Tiger Lily's role was in the book, I was expecting some sort of help or fiery tirade from her, but she was just reduced to a mute), I could have given a 4.

Better luck next time, I guess, author.

Overall the story arc in this book was good, but the writing was mediocre. I liked the modern sci-fi twist to the classic Peter Pan story, but at times adherence to the original novel came across very forced. The author did a good job building up the backstory for Wendy, John, and Michael, but the backstory for Hooke, Peter and the rest of the stranded crew was thin at best. Furthermore, the author tried to add in a romance element, but there was absolutely no chemistry between the characters. Particularly <spoiler> between Wendy and Boyce, seriously WTF </spoiler>. The next book should be interesting but I'd want to see a lot of improvement in the writing before I'd pay money for it.

A brilliant retelling of Peter Pan!

I was not prepared to fall for this story as I did! Space and Peter Pan? Two of my least favorite topics and yet here I was falling head over heels in love with this retelling! Sullivan crafted a believable universe, with amazing characters who all possess a unique personality.

The overall plot was somewhat in line with the story we all know, but again Sullivan made this story her own and wove in lore that while might resemble the classic is wholly Second Star lore!

Each side character in the story has a purpose and adds rather than distracts from what is going on, and each character has faults or strengths, and speaking of strength I want to shout out the girl power in this book, too! Wendy grows by leaps and bounds in this novel which I absolutely adored, she is so strong and a perfect role model for girls!

Okay, so I'm going to try to review this as I would in my writing group since it's my first one. The premise behind this book was amazing, being a hardcore Peter Pan buff and big sci-fi nerd, I thought this would be way up my alley. The writer got a little too caught up in her own cleverness by translating Peter Pan to sci-fi and while it was cute at first, it grew wearisome by Smee. Also, immersion was completely lost for me when someone was made the captain of a ship without ever serving on a vessel before on a vastly important mission. I also didn't need to be constantly reminded of the hotness of the characters every single time they walked into a room, we get it. A little research in even the simplest of areas would have gone a long way (Bob Marley did not ever sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" that was Bobby McFerrin and that was seven years after Bob Marley died, so again, immersion breaking.) I know I'm not the demographic for this novel, but when the best lines of your retelling are coming from the original telling, it needs a second glance, I think. I hate sounding harsh for my first review, I love her idea, it's so fun, it just fell really flat for me. I forced myself to finish it because the publishers and netgalley were so kind to provide me with a copy for review, but it was really hard to finish. As an otome game? This would have been 10/10 the best otome game ever!! As a retelling? I'm going to give it 2/5 stars.

This was a nice twist on Peter Pan that still honored a lot from the traditional tale and it was fun to see them woven into a new tale, especially the clever names incorporated with the tech. Pacing with a little disjointed for me with the time-jumps, especially where it wasn't easily labeled with the chapter headings and such large gaps in the beginning that took up almost half the book left the second half feeling very rushed to fit it all in. I adored the characters and felt very connected to them. Hooke fell flat as an antagonist in wake of the Shadow and I wish he'd better earned the villainous reputation Peter Pan said he deserved, or at least had it play out more at the end rather than collapsing into general bad-guy. The whole thing with Boyce threw me and I really didn't like the angle of "he was only mean to her because he likes her" thing. It made me dislike him more and the fact that Wendy wasn't more resistant to that bothered me, she's too strong of a character to be played that way.

The kindle file contained no text. Just images for the chapter headings. I will happily read and review if the publisher and/or net galley can fix this. The epithets were there. The chapter numbers had pretty graphics. I should have selected will not give feedback but I accidentally clicked the wrong button and it wouldn't let me go back and change it.

A really clever re imagining of Peter Pan, with everything from character names to Tink and pixie dust. It all fitted together very smoothly. Of course, it ended on a massive cliffhanger, and if there was an explanation for the time dilation thing I didn't get it, but it's a good story and I'll be watching out for the next one - got to find out what happens next!


There were a few missing words here and there; not enough to make it unreadable, but more than should be in a book this close to completion.

A retelling of the story of Peter Pan with a Sci-Fi twist. The book is told from both Peter and Wendy's perspective. Its nice to be able to see the adventure from both their points of view. Peter on Neverland and Wendy still in London, working her way up to Captain.

All the same characters are there, Wendy, Michael(s), John(s), Hooke, Peter and the lost boys. Smee and Tinc are there but they are more tech heavy and really fun how the author works them into story. Its really the characters that this book is so good at, the author really seems to have grasp of Peter and Wendy, the characterization felt very true to their original stories. Even their backgrounds are grounded in the original tale. Its clear the author has done her research and is trying to tell the truest retelling that she can. I especially liked Hooke, his descent into a strange form of madness was really well done. I really liked Wendy and Peter and I wish we could have been able to get to see them together longer.

This is where my main issues with the book. The pacing feels off, there is a lot of time spent at the academy that really drags the story along. While you get to spend time at Neverland with Peter once Wendy gets there it feels very rushed. It wasn't that everything happened so fast plot wise, it just felt way too fast while the first half dragged the second half sped by. I really would have liked to see the first half at the academy be cut shorter so we could get more time with Wendy and the crew at Neverland. A little complaint was that the insult of codfish pops up, yes its true to the original story but it felt like it had no place in their sci-fi retelling.

I am hoping that we will get a sequel because after that ending, I'm going to need to have more.

I've always enjoyed fairy tale retelling and I can tell you now read quite a few and this one didn't disappoint. its a great story with a sci- fi twist would i would definitely recommend its.

would definitely recommend i love peter pan retellings and this is a really good one you wanna go in kinda blind dont need to know more than what the book descrpition says

<b> You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com </b>

Actual rating of 3.5

Second Star is a retelling of the fairy-tale Peter Pan. Set in the future, it is told from alternating points of view between Wendy and Peter. Peter is the mechanic on Captain Hooke's space ship, the Jolly Roger, when he realises that Hooke cannot be trusted and is in fact defecting from the Brigade's mission and purpose. Pan sabotages the Jolly Roger, but does so at the edge of a sector which causes them to be pulled in to an unknown planet by it's gravitational force. While Peter and the rest of the young boys onboard the Roger aim to get free from Hooke and his band of pirates, they find themselves also battling another force on this strange planet, it's native inhabitants. Fast forward 100 years, and we meet Wendy, who is a genius and has been accepted to the Academy so she can train to become a part of the Londonierre Brigade, hoping to one day, make it as a Captain. fast forward a few years, and Wendy is older now, and tasked with being part of a rescue mission out to the unknown sector, where a transmission has come through from none other than Captain Hooke. Wendy and the rest of her crew head out to bring back the crew of the Jolly Roger, though things aren't quite what they seem, secrets and lies, as well as an evil dark power abound in Neverland. Can they make it back home again?

Fairy-tale retellings, what's NOT to love about them, hey? I love seeing the different spins that author's put on them, while still keeping the core of the original story intact. I found it incredibly clever in this one as TINC is actually a nanobot that Peter has tweaked to his own specifications, TINC is actually short for Technological Interface Nano-Companion, as well as SMEE who is also robotic and Hooke's first mate, is short for Synthetic Maintenance Engineering Emissary, another piece of equipment is referred to as pix.E which is short for Personal Interface Cross-Electro Positron. I found this play on original characters and stuff from the story incredibly clever, and even got a little bit giddy when I first read it. I think that was my absolute FAVOURITE thing about this retelling. IT'S.JUST.SO.CLEVER. Other characters that we all remember are Michael who is now Michaels (last name) a tech genius, John who is now Johns (last name) and he is a brute and one of Wendy's best friend. Tiger Lily is also incorporated in a small part as the bride of the prince of the natives.

I loved the way that this fairy-tale was skyrocketed (literally) into the future, the way that Sullivan was able to incorporate all the important and most well known parts of the original into this retelling was done flawlessly and so well, and I think that's incredibly important if you are going to be retelling a well known story. You have to be able to do it justice, I believe Sullivan did. So why not a higher rating?

Well, this book, according to Goodreads, is only roughly meant to be about 350 pages, though it took me a long time to read it. I think this had a lot to do with the pacing, a lot of the time I felt like there wasn't really that much <i>happening</i> though there was. I understand that Sullivan had to set the world, characters and story up, and I feel that something would have been lost had it not been written the way it was, I just felt bored a lot of the time. The story was progressing but at a snail's pace in my eyes. Even wanting to see what happened to the characters wasn't enough to keep me glued to the pages, so this was a little disappointing for me. The last 20% of the book were action, action, action, I kinda wish that the rest of the book had this as well, I think it would've helped the pacing a lot had there been more going on.

I had no issues with the characters at all, I feel they were all written superbly. Wendy is strong, fearless and so driven, I loved it. Johns was the secondary flirty character and didn't disappoint in this role. Michaels is still the shy boy that I remember, and Pan? Pan was cocky, sure of himself, a fighter, and incredibly flirty and playful, just like Pan should be. The way that Hooke was written, as though having gone a little crazy was brilliantly done and he couldn't have been written better.

All in all, if you love a good 'ol fairy-tale retelling, give Second Star a go, you may enjoy it :)

A Peter Pan retelling in space from Wendy’s perspective? Sign me up!

This had so much promise and I was so excited to read it, yet, now that I’m done, I’m disappointed. I just felt that there should have been so much more.
The characters were my biggest struggle with this book. I liked that they were all the original Peter Pan characters with creative was to come into their names and slight quirks that were homages to the originals. Unfortunately, they mostly seemed to fall flat. I really did enjoy Wendy in the beginning. I thought she was tough, feisty, and ready to take on the world. Once she reached Neverland and met Peter, she seemed to become a helpless girl though. I was disappointing towards the end how useless she was, especially as a captain and leader. I did not like Peter’s character. I could not connect with his storyline as I felt I had already read it and wanted to get back to Wendy, Johns, and Michaels.
The plot was a pretty straight forward retelling of the classic tale with a science fiction twist. There are some added additions, but mostly we follow Peter and Wendy through the same situations they have been through before (mermaids, sword fights, poisoning).
The setting fell along the same lines. It was new, yet it was still the same. Same mysterious land with a lagoon, a skull island, a jungle, and ships. Only the ships were a little different as they were space instead of pirate. The academy for Wendy was pretty stark with details which left the reader with a normal school setting.
The ending was a bit quick, too clean, and quite impractical. It was left open for possible future installments, yet enough was finished to be the end, as the original ended.
As a whole, this wasn’t enough of something new to get me excited about. I wanted more of Wendy’s story, as that was the new part and how the book was promoted. This was a fair attempt to try a new spin, but didn’t succeed in bringing much substance to a classic story.