"Wendy Darling, the girl who learnt to fly, who survived, who refused to be Afraid"

The Classic Peter Pan and the Lost Boys retold. Only Peter Pan is not just the boy who refuses to grow up but much more dark and malicious. This story is the darker version of what happens in neverland after Wendy leaves and returns home. "This is what happens when you grow up!!"

Wendy when she was in Neverland first with her brothers (1902), wendy after she comes back and is sent to an asylum(because she struggles to forget neverland and peter while her brother can't remember it) (1917-1920), Jane(wendy's daughter being flown away with Peter, and Wendy flying back to Neverland to save her daughter are simultaneously depicted here (present 1931).

Peter abducts Wendy's daughter, Jane, mistaking her for Wendy and takes her to Neverland. Very soon after reaching Neverland Jane realizes her memory fading away until she forgets her name. She senses the dark manipulative power of Peter and though she falls for his tricks on her mind, she finds her way back.
On the other hand, Wendy decides to save her daughter from the boy who refuses to grow up. on her journey to Neverland again, she recalls paramount secrets given to her by Peter about himself which she had long forgotten or made to forget. However now she will fight Peter and bring back her daughter.

I felt a little stretch in the story, with few details which could have been avoided.

Thank you NetGalley and Titan books for the ARC.

I received a copy from NetGalley and Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.


Overall, this retelling of Peter Pan has its merits. It follows the story of Wendy’s life and return to Neverland and the adventure that follows. I have some pros and cons for this story. The cons include plot. It felt disjointed during certain parts and left me a little confused with the time skips and how they related to the overall plot. I thought the ending was really predictable too. Another issue I had was the language used. If you’re a fan of Madeline Miller’s story telling, you’ll enjoy Wendy, Darling, however, after reading it. This type of story isn’t necessarily for me. Now to the pros. I think revisiting a classic fairytale is always difficult but the author did it well. The parts with Wendy and Mary in St Bernadette’s were some of my favorites. Their friendship truly was heartfelt.

Would I read this again? Probably not, however, I do see how this could easily become others’ favorite story.

I’ve always thought Peter Pan was such a creepy tale... a little fairy boy that kidnaps kids and is super sexist? No thank you. This book embraces the creepiness of the tale, and highlights the horrors Peter can bring about. Wendy is all grown up, but now her child is abducted into the same nightmare she tries to convince everyone around her happened. After being committed, Wendy stops talking about Neverland, but maybe if she’d told her story to her daughter, Jane, maybe Jane would have been prepared. Loved it!

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In this Peter Pan retelling the story follows Wendy after she leaves Neverland. Immediately after she is put in an insane asylum because no one believes her about Neverland. We also see Wendy as an adult with a child of her own, Jane. Where she walks into Jane’s room and finds Peter taking her daughter and she has to travel to Neverland to get her back.

Not only did this retelling stay true to the original story but it also managed to make this story feel original and new. Focusing on what happens to Wendy after Neverland. It took the darker aspects of Peter Pan and made a new story out of them and it was amazing. The story telling was beautiful. I could not put this book down. I needed to know if Wendy was able to save Jane. The messages and lessons the author put in the story were beautifully done. I recommend this to anyone who loves retellings but also wants to read something original. This is a story I won’t forget and I plan on preordering this book as soon as it’s released. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on 6/1/2021 and I highly recommend you pick it up. I know I be.

Thank you, #netgalley, for the ARC of #WendyDarling!

This story is absolutely perfect! It takes the main element of Peter Pan that I always found bothersome and exposed it for the nightmare it is. Told between 1904 Neverland, 1917-1920 London, and "present day" (1931) London and Neverland, Wendy, Darling tells the story of Wendy and her family and the repercussions of her initial Neverland visit, her memories, and her brothers' lack of memories.

Peter Pan was one of the most important stories of my formative years. It’s had a lasting impact on me, and is a tale I return to frequently as I puzzle out what my own childhood, and childhood in general, means to me. I have read several re-imaginings, prequels, sequels, and companion pieces to Barrie’s stories, and am always on the lookout for a new and exciting contribution to that world.

*Wendy, Darling* is a worthy such contribution.

The story sets itself up as a kind of sequel, in which Wendy, now a mother, returns to Neverland to retrieve her daughter, who has been taken away by Peter in her stead. Wendy, however, is neither the wide-eyed girl who first went to Neverland nor the uncomplicated Platonic ideal of motherhood she is often expected to be. She carries with her her scars, trauma, fear—and also her strength, love, and friendship.

Some things I love about the book lie around how it engages with Neverland, and how Neverland looks and feels to children and grown-ups. I also love the exploration of the gender dynamics of the story we all remember, and how they are skewed both by the way children are socially conditioned to behave and treat one another and by the fact that in Neverland, things work as Peter expects them to, not as they are. And my very favorite element was the exploration of Wendy’s sewing: the devalued, girlish skill that first endeared her to Peter, which becomes her weapon and defense in adult life and upon her return to Neverland.

There were also some missed opportunities. Although the action takes place in 1931, with flashbacks through the 1910s and ‘20s, Wendy’s adult life seems aesthetically more mired in the early-Edwardian London of her childhood; perhaps this is due to an old-fashioned father-in-law, but the novel seems weirdly out of place in its own setting. London itself is left completely un-sketched-in, odd when Wendy decides for herself that it is as much her home, if not more, as Neverland. And for a feminist re-imagining to completely ignore Tinker Bell, one of the most fascinating female characters in the original story (and fairies in general, who play a hefty role in Peter’s mythology) is strange. Perhaps it is because fairies are so tied in to Peter’s origin story, and Wise wished to craft a new and darker beginning for him—but that could have easily been explained away as his own fiction.

Fans of Peter Pan will certainly recognize their Neverland in this story. Though Wise doesn’t repeat verbatim the darker elements of Barrie’s work (and there are many), she captures the spirit of them that was always lurking around Neverland’s edges, and brings them together to a single darkness for Wendy to confront. Though not my favorite Peter Pan imagined sequel, and it could use some fleshing out, *Wendy, Darling* is a welcome addition to my curated collection of Pan-aphernalia.

I’m a sucker for the evil Peter Pan trope. Sure it’s commonly done, but the concept of a child from a different dimension who flies into your window and kidnaps you is easy to interpret as something that doesn’t sit quite right, so no wonder. In this version, Wendy is now an adult and the only one who retains any memory of their time in Neverland. Michael holds the mental and physical burdens as a survivor of the war; John was forced to mature quickly with the death of their parents and holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, and neither have any sympathy for their sister’s ramblings about a fantasy world they no longer believe existed.

This book flashes back between their present day (1931) and 11 years prior, when Wendy was committed to a mental asylum by John himself. The book flips between these two timelines, documenting the horrors of St. Bernadette’s along with their present time, where Wendy’s daughter Jane has been kidnapped by Peter.


“She must keep trying to remember. Nothing here is what it seems. Peter may look like a regular boy, but in truth, he’s a dangerous thing. He may not be human at all.”


While Wendy remains insistent that her time in Neverland was a happy time full of adventures though her brothers have both forgotten, turns out her memory of their time in Neverland isn’t infallible either. In fact, there is something Wendy has repressed. A terrible secret about her time in Neverland that Wendy has forgotten. But surely it must be a lie....Neverland was nothing more than a grand adventure, right?


“Neverland isn’t what she once believed it to be, an escape, a cure for all ills. As children, they ran away here without even any troubles to escape from, and wasn’t it Neverland itself that left her scarred?”


I quite enjoyed this read and found it engaging!
Though my favorite books (using this trope) still are the Wendy Darling series by Colleen Oakes, I thought this was a unique and fun take. However, I would’ve liked the ending wrapped up just a little neater after the climax, because I still have some questions. Still, this was a beautiful read with a bittersweet ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

When Wendy Darling was a child, she went on a journey to a magical place called Neverland. Along with her two younger brothers, they ran and jumped and played with an impish boy named Peter and his band of Lost Boys. There were no adults to enforce any rules, and Wendy felt free for the first time. But then Wendy did the unthinkable-- she grew up and everything turned upside down. After leaving Neverland, Wendy went from asylum patient to wife to mother, never once forgetting her time with Peter. A part of her always wished to return to that special place, but Neverland isn't as serene as she remembers. When Peter steals her daughter away, flashes of memories start to come back to Wendy of a darkness that lives at the center of the island. Now, Wendy must face the wickedness of Neverland and the sinister boy she'd once do anything for if she hopes to rescue her daughter from a dark fate.

I've always loved the story of Peter Pan, but this is not the idyllic Disney story we're all familiar with. Wise takes a story that most everyone knows and completely flips it on its head. It's a darker more malicious take on Neverland and it works so well. Peter is still this fun-loving boy, but there's an underlying predatory feeling to him that makes you feel very uneasy. The way he interacts with Wendy, her daughter, and especially the Lost Boys is almost unhinged in a way. I also thought the way Wise tied him to the darkness of the island was very clever. My favorite part of this though was Wendy. She went through so many hardships after coming back from Neverland, but she never let anyone break her spirit or make her second guess herself, it just made her resolve that much stronger. I liked seeing her come back to Neverland as an adult and confront her past while fighting for her daughter. There were bits of this that felt slow and dragged out, but overall, this was a fun one.

Haunting, beautiful and bittersweet. As a child, Peter Pan was my first crush. I longed for the boy who could fly to appear in my window and whisk me away to a land of endless childhood. But in Wendy, Darling, the boy who never grows up is much darker, the island is haunted by shadows and secrets. When Wendy and her brothers return from Neverland she is brutally forced to renounce her so-called memories of Peter but she tucks them away into the back of her mind. Wendy loses her voice, her strength, herself. This isn't child's play anymore and for Wendy Darling, all grown up, when Peter comes for her daughter, Jane, her motherly instinct kicks in fueled by the memories of her time in Neverland. You can feel Wendy's pain and rage and the reader is instantly grabbed by her mission to save her daughter, her desire to be in the place she loved with the boy she held so dear, and her anger over her lost years thanks to Peter. This continuation of Peter Pan is a touching story about what happens to Wendy after she returned from Neverland and her quest to return. Her memories are not what she thought they were and as she journeys deeper into the heart of Neverland. Peter is hiding something and she is going to uncover his secrets, save her daughter and maybe just save herself in the process.

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I (like many others I'm sure) grew up watching Peter Pan to later realize all what was ignorant about it-- or what could strike fear. At the time, I hadn't known that-- I had only wanted to never grow up, to remain a child, as adulthood was something I feared. But even then I knew-- I didn't want to stay young with Peter Pan. They kept running around, and Wendy wasn't able to do as much as the boys, even the baby.

I also knew that many of the Peter Pan sequels I'd seen that had Wendy/Peter was never something I could like.

So this Peter? This fey, stubborn Peter? So very much a child in all the worst ways of stubbornness, and casual cruelty, of still learning the world isn't his and people have feelings? Very much down my alley. I also too loved the *what happened to Wendy after*-- her struggles with connecting, her ties to Neverland, and her relationship with her family.

Speaking of family. . .I am not Native, and both Mary's and Tiger Lily's story arcs I 'm not quite sure how to feel about? I liked most of what was done with them, and how much the stories revolved around their choices, but . . yes. I hope a sensitivity reader was used!

I’m addicted to Peter Pan universe! I think only this year I might have read more than five retellings about Peter- Wendy Darling and lost boy stories made me dream more about Neverland which ends with nightmares! I have to admit I always find myself dragged into the dark and morbid parts of the story!

After reading this book, I’m sure everyone change their minds about getting a golden ticket from Neverland because nothing as it’s portrayed at the previous books. It was bleaker, darker, scarier!

It’s not a good place for Wendy and her brothers anymore.

Do you wanna know what happened to Wendy, her brothers John, Michael? Did they live happily ever after? Nope, they didn’t because in real world there is no bloody happily ever after according to this story that highly agree!

Their story has no resemblances with fairytales. On contrary, they include PTSD, abuse, mental illness, so many personal dramas!

Wendy became badass adult and a lovely mother. But when her childhood friend you missed returns back to kidnap your child what would you do?

Yeah, Wendy has to return back to the place where her nightmares started to save her daughter Jane!

I liked story telling style including different timelines and both Wendy and her daughter’s voices. And hidden monsters, psych wards, abuse, inner fears of children scared the living daylights out of me!

I loved Wendy! She was survivor, warrior, flawed, traumatized but trying to stay strong after being controlled by oppressive characters for years.

The author takes us to the journey giving parts of Wendy’s first trip to Neverland, her returning back and her daughter Jane’s time at there after she’s been kidnapped.

This true dark, wild, terrifying version of the story truly captures your attention! It’s not only bleakest, depressing retelling of the story but it is also great psychological thriller with great character analysis.

I enjoyed it a lot and finished in one sit!

Highly recommended to great fans of Neverland and readers who aren’t afraid of crossing the dark side to experience very different version of story!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

2.5 stars
I’m definitely a fan of retellings.
I’ve read a couple Peter Pan retellings (Tiger Lily is a fantastic one) and usually find them to be fun.
This one was not fun... it’s dark and evil.
And it was just trying to ruin the original story.
Don’t get me wrong- I know there are definitely problems with the original story, but this just twisted it into something else. It tried to hard to fix those issues.
And this could be my fault for not realizing from the synopsis how dark it would be.

I thought it was compelling and I flew through the story, but ultimately, I didn’t connect with it as much as I wouldn’t liked.

If you ever wanted to hear Peter Pan bit from Wendy's point of view, then this is the book for you. A fun, quirky, adventurous read that will be loved by many

What a fun and interesting re-telling of a beloved classic, full of feminist theory and women power. If you love Peter Pan but want Wendy to take the spotlight and get her own story and ending, pick this up.

Thank you for the e-arc!

I absolutely love a re-telling of a classic, and having read a re-telling of Peter Pan before (Tiger Lily) I was excited to read this.
I definitely enjoyed it. This is a dark story, involving abuse, PTSD, oppression, mental illness, murder and more, but there are moments of lightness. I really loved the relationships between Wendy and her brothers, especially Michael. I also loved the reveal of Wendy and Ned's marriage.
I wish there was more action though. All the stuff in Never-ending, most of it seems to be internal thoughts of Wendy and Jane, thinking remembering wondering figuring.... and not much plot. Then the ending felt rushed.
However overall I enjoyed the novel and will recommend to readers.

A beautifully executed, feminist, and gothic retelling of Peter Pan. This book follows the story of Wendy Darling, exploring her role as more than a side-character in Pan’s story. Wendy Darling leaves Neverland, and is forced to grow up, enduring the pain of a reality without Neverland. Her daughter, Jane, is taken by Pan, and Wendy is forced to put the joys of Neverland out of her mind as she goes on a quest to rescue her daughter.

From the very first chapter this book promised beauty, tragedy, whimsy and bitterweetness. Subverting the traditional Peter Pan story and moulding it to our reality creates a gothic and enchanting read. The lightness of the original tale is scrutinised from an adult perspective, as Neverland is nothing more than a fantasy, and alongside such fantasies come dangerous truths. Wendy’s defiant committment to remembering Neverland, in spite of her brothers forgetting, displays her childhood youth and spirit. However the darker undertones soon come to light, as the hold Neverland has over her is concerning at best, and life-threatening at worst. Neverland, a place of beauty and joy to young children seeking adventure, becomes a horrific fantasy, and the product of a malevolent spirit. Dark plots of kidnappings, psych wards, forgotten identities, and hidden monsters are littered across this novel, setting a tense and unceasing pace which keeps you on the edge of your seat. This book did a fantastic job of weaving in a mother's narrative, a daughter's narrative, and was bittersweet in the best way!



Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for this arc (in return for an honest review)!
Review to be posted on Amazon and Goodreads on 6/1/21 per publisher request
Full length review (with spoilers) to be posted to my website

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise is an excellent fictional novel that is a retelling of the classic Peter Pan that is fascinating, gripping, and so unique that I cannot recommend it enough.

I loved the original Peter Pan, heck I even watched the theater version with Mary Martin so many times my VCR tape went kaput. So obviously I had to read this rendition that tells the story from a female perspective. Wendy is the unsung heroine that I always felt never got enough screen time and attention. She finally gets her say, and the chance to show her strength.

This book gives the story in a few different viewpoints: from Wendy on her original trip to Neverland, from Wendy after returning, and from her daughter Jane who has been captured by Peter and taken back to Neverland.

I will leave the stunning story, plot, and satisfying ending for the reader to discover. Let me just say it kept me up at night until I was able to finish.

Wendy is an impressive character. She is strong, feisty, smart, but yet flawed and imperfect. She gets it from multiple angles: the fact that she is a woman at that time period really segments her into such a small realm, the male figures in her life also are oppressive, even when not intending to be, and she also has to deal with her inner struggles and resolutions. We see Wendy really shine and have a voice within this book. It is wonderful to hear her voice.

This is definitely a darker novel. It is not overtly dark and evil by any means, but the original book’s undertones that I feel were always there are definitely highlighted within this book. It is real, raw, and that is balanced perfectly with the fantasy aspect of Neverland. Both worlds seem to have a real vs ethereal component to each. It is fascinating to see these concepts brought to the surface.

An excellent alternative viewpoint and retelling of a classic novel.

5/5 stars

Thank you NG and Titan Books for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR, Bookbub, Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 6/1/21 per publisher request. Links will be added below when updated.

All children, except one, grow up. And it that exceptional one that has become such a legendary emblem of defiant youth and invincible spirit of adventure. Or something much darker. Depends on your interpretation. A.C.Wise’s interpretation is definitely down the dark path, but this book isn’t so much about the ageless boy as it is about his once upon a time friend (or, as Wise casts her, victim) Wendy.
Wendy Darling did grow up. And didn’t have the easiest time of it. While her brothers promptly conditioned themselves to forget their time in Neverland, Wendy was never able to do that, which causes much family strife and resulted in her eventual lock up in an asylum…because that’s what was done with difficult women at the time. Eventually she got out, conditional to an arranged by her brother marriage and had a daughter of her own. And was happy enough until a boy, that boy, showed up and stole her daughter away. At which time Wendy went into proper mamabear mode, remembered her flying lessons and took off to Neverland to save young Jane from the clutches of the evil boy/man.
And evil is pretty much how Pan is presented through the entire novel. Not just general evil, but the oppressive MeToo era kind, for casting Wendy into the traditional mother role, for his expectations and manipulations. Most of the original story is recast in a light so sinister, you’d think it’s the original Nosferatu or something.
Which is actually…fine. It’s understandable. There is indeed a certain darkness in Neverland just below the superficial fun and games. I’m not sure it was intended that way, in fact personally I’d wager it wasn’t, but it can be easily interpreted as such, specifically from a modern/woke brain perspective. Brom, the writer and artist, understood that and utilized it perfectly in his darkly luminous retelling of the novel.
Wise didn’t want to just settle for horrortinged approach, she went for the feminist angle. Which worked to an extent, since women were treated (more) deplorably back in the day, especially women who challenged the societal norms, but there’s something about having such a beloved character (from one of my all time favorite stories no less) cast in this role of a vile oppressor that didn’t really sing for me.
And there’s a lot here about oppression. The title itself (this is quite clever, actually) reflects how patronizing calling someone darling can be. Wherein our intrepid protagonist is very proud of being a Darling, she’s never happy about being darling. And I suppose babe/baby/bae was out of the question for the times and culture or she’s take that on too.
Pan can be easily accused of being cruel, but his version of it was always more along the lines of the unthinking callous variety of arrogant youth, not the evil patriarch kind. And so all Wise tries to make those shoes fit, it just doesn’t quite work. In fact, one might argue her own brothers, one through control and one through indifference and both through denial might have harmed Wendy more than a boy who once taught her to fly.
Wise’s is a hyperwoke perspective, she infuses modern sexuality, awareness and ideas into her narrative, Wendy’s marriage is most unconventional in real life as it was in Neverland, and she’s all about fighting the power once she gets back to Neverland, but in the end of the day the author’s messages come through as way too heavyhanded and nowhere near exciting or original enough to compete with the magic of Neverland, real or Wise’s version thereof. The Neverland always wins. The timeless appeal of timelessness simply cannot be denied.
Outside of the fact that the author essentially utilizes one of my favorite stories as a message delivery platform, I also didn’t really love the writing. And I’ve read Wise before and enjoyed it, but this book, while technically perfectly decent, just seemed so overwritten. The approach to narrative was on a very microscale and it was (and this is as good as I can describe it) aggressively emotional and emotive. All the innards on the outside. Elaborately, exhaustively, exhaustingly so. Arguably appropriate for feminist fiction, but it did nothing for pacing and overall dynamism of the story.
But otherwise (and I know that’s a huge but, but still) it was a pretty interesting read. Possibly because I love Neverland so much, any fictional revisit is fun, possibly because the fan of classic children’s tales and a fan of scary stories in me like the marriage of the genres. I didn’t love the book, that much is obvious by now, but it made for an intriguing, somewhat frustrating, but fairly entertaining read. Thanks Netgalley.

I tend to avoid novels which retell or continue classic stories (why do so many people want to rewrite Pride and Prejudice?), but something about A.C. Wise’s Wendy, Darling caught my attention. Peter Pan is already a book that speaks to children and adults in different ways: reading it, as a grown-up, provokes a sense of discomfort that simmers beneath the sheer joy of its nostalgic anarchy. Wise has grasped that sense of ‘somehow wrong-ness’ and anchored it at the heart of her book, a fierce story of female autonomy, courage and memory. It begins, of course, on a dark night in London, in a nursery, where a small girl sleeps in a bed. A slight, lean shape appears at the nursery window: it’s Peter, come to carry Wendy back to Neverland. But Peter has left it too long. The child in the bed is not Wendy. It’s 1931 and Wendy, now a married woman, is in her room when she feels the warning sense of danger. She runs to the nursery, but she’s too late: Peter has spirited away her daughter, Jane. Outraged by the theft, Wendy can do only one thing: she must gather her courage and go to bring her daughter home.

Wendy has spent her adult life learning to conform: to put Neverland behind her and shape her spirit as society demands. In the aftermath of their own childhood adventure, her brothers John and Michael have forgotten too easily, too quickly. Wendy is the only one who remembered, who clung to her bright memories of Peter and Neverland. She can’t quite remember the point when her brothers began to find her embarrassing. Was it when they lost their parents? Or later, when the world went up in flame and Michael went off to be broken on the fields of Flanders? Throughout, she has tried to remind them about Peter, the mermaids and the delicious freedom of Neverland, but her fervent insistence brought her in the end to St Bernadette’s. Here, among cruel warders and petty deprivations, she’s regarded as a dangerously deluded woman. But Wendy won’t give up. And, when she finds a friend in the heart of that awful place, she begins to hope that she can survive without giving up her self entirely. Given the choice, she would still fly back to Neverland. Peter promised he would come for her. But it has been so long now, so many years. Where is he? How can he have forgotten her?

And then, years later, Jane is taken, instead of her. Wendy has left St Bernadette’s behind her, having managed to convince her brothers that she is well, but now she knows exactly what she must do: go back to Neverland alone. But her return is muted: this magical island of her childhood is marred by flashes of foreboding. She remembers a great secret that Peter once showed her, but the memory shape-shifts, hidden behind a door in her mind that she can’t reopen. What did she see there? It was something horrible, something that she was never meant to see. And now, on the island that she once loved more than anything else, Wendy realises that boys may not grow up, but time passes nevertheless, and all is not well in this place of dreams. Meanwhile, Jane is trying to understand what has brought her to this strange island, where she’s expected to play host to a ragged band of boys, and where her captor, Peter, insists on calling her Wendy. There are games, but all are played to Peter’s rules, and Jane finds that it’s growing more and more difficult not to join in. Something keeps tugging her, inviting her to throw herself into the gleeful game, to give herself up to the sheer pleasure of play. How can she keep a grip on her memory of who she is and the sheer wrongness of her being here at all? In Neverland, it’s all too easy to forget – and who can really trust a boy without a shadow?

Wise brings out the darkness implicit in the story, probing into this world where the games, the food and the very shape of the island are dependent on one sparkling intellect: Peter’s own. And they can change, quickly and without warning, if he is crossed. Here Peter is far from the crowing innocent of Victorian imagination: Wise creates something more coercive and threatening, something positively primal in its antiquity and wilfulness. Hints of this were evident in J.M. Barrie’s original, of course – not for nothing is Peter called ‘Pan’, the god of wild, unconstrained revels. But Wise goes deeper, creating a leader who keeps an iron grip on his creations, who plays out the same story again and again, trapping his Lost Boys, or the pirates, or the Indians, into a cruel cycle where they are nothing but pawns. Halfway through the book, in fact, I realised with a start that Wise is channelling the same unsettling sensation that I’ve felt while reading Robert Holdstock‘s books. Peter, here at least, is surely a kind of mythago – not a boy, but something far more primitive and ancient. It gave me a delicious shiver, and at some points I wished that Wise had pushed even further along that line of thought.

This is also a firmly feminist book. I’d like to think that, even as a child, I thought it unfair that Wendy had to stay behind to cook and clean while all the boys were off having adventures (like poor old Anne in The Famous Five), but I don’t know whether I had the self-awareness to be annoyed – perhaps I assumed that, if I ever ended up in Neverland, I’d become an honorary Lost Boy and romp around with the rest of them. But Wise is acutely interested in the way that women are, even at a young age, expected to become mother-figures, expected to fulfil a certain place in society, and pilloried when they dare to behave in a way that breaches those expectations. Wendy, of course, is institutionalised when her narrative of the world doesn’t fit with what her more conventional brothers want her to say. She is forced to become a wife, although she and her husband find unexpected wellsprings of support in one another. Even in Neverland, Jane – a self-proclaimed scientist – finds herself trapped or lured back whenever she tries to break Peter’s spell and act independently. Women are expected to be caring mother-figures for men, but at the same time they are expected to be meek, submissive to the will of those very same men, preferably infantilised so that they are little better than children.

But there are compensations: Wise doesn’t care for society’s imposition of roles on women, but she is alive to the magic of motherhood. She writes beautifully about the strong, fierce relationship between mothers and daughters, and the way that a woman can dare unimaginable things when she is called upon to protect those she loves. Here, at last, the women learn to save themselves.

For the review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2021/05/16/wendy-darling-2021-a-c-wise/

*Thank you to Titian Books,A.C. Wise and Netgalley, for giving me an E-ARC of "Wendy,Darling" in exchange for an honest review*

Wendy, Darling was just the feminist Peter Pan retelling I've been craving. It puts Wendy front and center, where she should be. We follow three different threads in this story : Peter kidnaps Jane, Wendy's daughter, and takes her to Neverland to become their new Wendy. We follow Jane in Neverland, Wendy in present time, trying to rescue her daughter, as well as Wendy shortly after she returns home from Neverland after her original adventure. A.C. Wise breathes fresh, diverse, life into this retelling.