I loved this book! It was yet another beautifully written retelling by AC Wise.
The writing was lyrical and atmospheric and it really transports you to not only the place but also the mind of the characters. There was a lot of introspection in this and you really got into the characters heads which made connecting with them easy. The overall plot is unique, interesting, and captivating.

My only minor complaint is that there are a lot of time and point of view switches that make the plot feel choppy at times. The story is well thought out and complete, it's just a bit scattered in how it is laid out.

Overall, a wonderful retelling!

The dark clouds rolled in and the waves battered the ship, threatening to crest over the boat and break it in two. The crew scrambled, trying to save the ship, but more-so to save themselves; but the storm was becoming too powerful and eventually the battle was lost. The ocean swallowed everything whole as lightning struck and severed the last bit of connection they all had to this world. It was done.

Hooked is the sequel to the book Wendy, Darling and continues the dark tale that the first book weaved. This book tells Captain Hook’s story and his perception of Neverland.

I enjoyed this second book a little more than the first book, but still had issues with the pacing. There were sections that were so slow I had a hard time keeping my attention focused and then there would be some action that would reel me back in. One thing that I loved about this book was the exploration of Captain Hook (James) as a gay pirate and his relationship with Samuel honestly brought tears to my eyes. It was definitely the highlight of this story!

A dark tale for fans of Peter Pan (particularly from the “villain” perspective).

Ultimately I thought the idea for this book looking at the after effects of the Peter Pan story was clever but personally found the story a bit predictable repeating as it does a lot of the elements of the origin story
I didn’t really understand who Timothy was I assume he was in a previous book in this series by the author
There were some delightful elements for example making Captain Hook simultaneously a ferocious pirate and a generous gay man I particularly enjoyed I also liked the nods to addiction both to a magical Netherland flower and to opiodes
I didn’t feel that the analogy of the grown up netherland boys going off to war and the war like Enviroment the narrator finds herself in was fully dealt with
This book didn’t quite hit the target for me
I read an early copy of this book on NetGalley Uk the book is published on 12 July 2022

Hooked takes the reader through a feminists, socially modern retelling of Peter Pan that oscillates between multiple perspectives with a focus on Captain Hook. While I liked the multiple takes, I would have much preferred if this story solely focused on Hook. It seems retellings of the classic fairytale have been flooding the shelves, and this one offers its own twist to the tale. In Wise's retelling, Pan is the true villain of "Once Upon a Time" proportions, and Wendy and Hook have escaped him and are back in London.
Unfortunately, even in their sanctuary, both Hook and Wendy struggle to cope with their trauma from Pan’s maniacal thirst for war and Neverland’s chaos inducing atmosphere. Hook has fallen to opium and alcohol to keep the past terrors at bay as he struggles to cope with his survivor's guilt and PTSD. To make matters worse, Pan's monstrous crocodile has found its way into London to wreak havoc on the "peace" Hook and Wendy have found.
Since this retelling takes place 22 years in the future, Wendy is an adult with a daughter in Medical school...(maybe I missed the timing, but I found Wise's timeline odd). With this story having 22 years of history-the timeline and plot can become confusing if not read in large chunks. I also suggest reading "Wendy, Darling" prior to "Hooked". Although "Hooked" is not advertised as a sequel to Wendy's story, I think it would help provide background.
If you are a fan of V. E. Schwabs, this is definitely a story to checkout! Wise's whimsical dark story telling lures the reader into the plot and enhances the characters feelings and actions. Wise's retelling leaves the reader questioning what "good" and "bad" is in the classic fairy tale and offers a new appreciation to the original story and future retellings. Although her ending felt chaotic and did not satisfy me, I hope this is Wise leaving the story open for further detail and a sequel.

i think for a peter pan retelling, it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't bad. i did enjoyed some parts of it, like the darker atmosphere and some of the topics that are talked about. however, i found the writing style a bit confusing and the timelines kept getting mixed up in my head.

What happens after Neverland? What remains when you have to grow up?

When released from Neverland, Wendy Darling has become a woman. but the dark spirit of Peter Pan lingers behind, obsessed with his cruel wonderland, a place where all are forced to act according to his whims. And as the hero, Pan needs a villain. Enter JAmes Hook, the pirate; who has died countless times, tortured by Pan's endless triumphs over him.

Until Hook escaped. And in London, he encounters the grown Wendy. But Pan won't let them go so easily...all this is a tale of redemption and suffering, of agony and recompense. People who must grow and forgive one another and themselves before discovering who they truly are; that's what growing up means. AC Wise spins a tale with positively gorgeous prose, and proves the adage of what happens to the girls of the stories of old. They grow. They become women. They live.

Because in 'Hooked,' trauma is a theme and something that lingers with the characters. Trauma is never far from them. Trauma is what they live with. But trauma is not them. Trauma is not who they are. Trauma is not something that destroys them. Trauma is something they grow beyond. Pan is the living manifestation of that trauma; a monstrous, black soul who refuses to let his victims rest. Pan can only exist and thrive is others suffer endlessly.

But in this book, they refuse to. Hook is not a great man, barely a good one. But when he finds his way and fights back, the reader can only cheer. When reality is cruel, fantasies that should comfort us can be even crueler. What remains?

Hooked answers that question: "We do." And that's everything.

Stunning novel.

5/5

I don’t have words to explain the magnificence of this book. I went in with extremely high expectations and yet I was still blown away. I think everyone needs to read this immediately because it will make you smile, and improve your life tenfold. I will read any sort of Peter Pan retelling, but this is top of the list!

Once invited, always welcome. 
Once invited, never free.

22 years after he found a way to escape Neverland and the thousands of deaths he endured at the hands of Peter Pan, Captain James Hook is now living in London. But Pan’s monster has found him again. After a chance encounter, James meets another Neverland survivor, Wendy Darling, the only other person who understands the darkness of Neverland. To kill the monster once and for all, Hook must play the villain one final time.

A dark reimagining of one of the world’s most famous children’s story? Sign me up! The premise of Hooked immediately grabbed my attention. A story focusing on Hook, the arch nemesis of Peter Pan and the return of Pan’s dreaded monster to seek out Hook wherever he tries to hide- sounds like the perfect novel!

Unfortunately I just didn’t get into the story as I had hoped. Told from multiple points of view with multiple timelines, it was hard to keep track of all the various threads in this story. I devoured the chapters told from James’ point of view but found myself skimming over those written from Wendy and her daughter Jane’s perspective. If this book had been told completely from the perspective of James, I think it would have worked better. I would have loved to seen more development in the book about James and his partner Samuel’s relationship- to see Hook as a man with a heart was an interesting aspect of the protagonist.

When I got to the section of the story which takes place in Neverland, I was as lost as one of Peter’s lost boys! One of the main issues I have is that this is classed as a stand alone novel but I think that you have to read Wendy Darling to fully appreciate the references and backstory for Wendy and Jane.

Not for me but I think fans of Peter Pan and Neverland would like it. Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the ARC. Hooked is out now. 2.5

This story had a lot of potential after "Wendy, Darling" but didn't live up to the hype for me. It was a bit slower paced and even though I did enjoy the characters, I didn't follow their arc as closely and with as much interest as the first book.

This book had really great potential! I loved the idea of it, and James and Wendy as characters were both very interesting!

Unfortunately, i felt like I had missed out on quite a bit having not read “Wendy, Darling” though it isn’t pitched as a sequel. Other than this, the plot was very dry. I liked the writing quite a lot, and the prose was very beautiful though exhausting at times. I think this could be a great read for some people, but it wasn’t for me!

Thanks to netgalley for sending me a copy!

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, yes, I admit I was pulled in by a gay Captain Hook.
But let's start somewhere else. I was never a Disney movie kind of girl, for some reason. But I was obsessed, and I mean obsessed, with the movie Hook. You know, the one with Robin Williams as an adult Peter Pan and Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell and stuff? Amazing. Showstopping. Totally unique. I watched the movie so many times the dvd scratched up until it was unplayable. The book is basically just a couple of pages held together by strings of glue now, I read it so much it fell apart.
I kind of wanted to relive that feeling.

And by god, this book did not fucking deliver.
I said this in a comment earlier, but characters being high every other chapter does not make for a good story. Characters remembering their past for chapters on end also doesn't make for a good story. The actual plot of this book seems shoved into the last couple of chapters, while the rest is a mishmash of memories of Neverland and the same moral dilemmas over and over. #

Neverland, in this book, is even more based on dream logic than the original. Peter Pan is some kind of all-powerful being, whose imaginations simply take place without discrimination. Captain Hook - James - is pulled from his life in London by some kind of power, and Peter tells him "You look like a pirate!" and he turns into a pirate. Peter says "Pirates have hooks for hands" and where there used to be a hand is now a hook - no, there was always a hook.
And Hook has to be there, always. He has to be Peter's enemy, but Peter will always defeat him, because he says so and so that is how it is. And everytime Captain Hook is killed by Peter Pan, Neverland resets itself and he is back where he started, stuck in an everlasting time-loop without being fully aware of it, not allowed to have any free will but also not knowing that he isn't actively making those choices, but also knowing deep down something isn't right.
So, when a mermaid offers him a dollar-store Subtle Knife to cut through the sky and escape, he takes it. Along with him, he takes his ship's surgeon, Samuel, and he sacrifices the rest of his crew to make it back to London.

And this could have been so good.

But it fucking isn't. Because Hook basically cannot function without opium or some other Neverland drug, he is high most of the time. His romance wih Samuel is predictable and shallow, just like everyone else in this book, and we know he's dead before we even get to care about him, so it's not really bury-your-gays but your-gays-are-already-buried.

While Hook smokes opium in London and feels sorry for himself, Wendy Darling has a daughter, Jane, who trains to become a doctor (she's one of the only female students, and her struggles could've been fascinating, but instead they are, just like anything else, extremely shallow and ultimately irrelevant).
Jane has been stolen to Neverland eight years ago, because this book is apparently a fucking sequel, even though there is no indication of that anywhere!!!! God, I am so mad. But I also didn't care enough. Jane's POV chapters, for once, are refreshing to read in a book full of bad lyrical prose and opium-addicted characters, because they are written like a normal book and not a quasi-purple-prose full of dream logic and repetitive dreams and queerbaiting.
Jane comes home one day to find her roommate and best friend tragically murdered. She immediately converges with her mother, because of course this HAS to have something to do with Neverland. Everything seems to have something to do with Neverland. The relationship between Jane and Wendy, her mother, is broken and fragile because of Neverland. Is this ever fully adressed? Well, kind of. Does it make sense? Nope.

This author practices the tell-side of show-and-tell, and tries to cover it up with an attempt at purple prose. Combined with the not-memories of a dream-like reality with Groundhog-Day rules, it's truly a torture to read.

Anyway, somehow Wendy, Hook, and Jane come together and agree that to end the murders, they have to go to Neverland. Wendy can't, because like Peter and Susan Pevensie, she can't go to Narnia/Neverland anymore. So Hook and Jane go together, to do ... something. I'm not gonna go on with the "plot" both because I don't want too many spoilers and also, I still don't quite get it myself. But as I have no desire of ever touching this book again, that's alright with me. And that's all the plot there is. It's very little, and it's very thin, and it's supported by a roughly 80% of reminiscing.

So yeah, I disliked this book very much. Thankfully, it was a short read.

3,5*
I loved Wendy Darling and had high expectations for this sort of follow up. I loved the parts set in Neverland and liked the second half of the book.
I had some issues with the first 50% as it's quite slow and I thought I was going to DNF it.
I think there's a lot of potential but a more tight and fast pace would help.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

In Hooked, Wise has created another masterpiece for lovers of Pan and new readers alike. While not perfectly written, it is perfectly enthralling and so any literary slights aside, is still fantastic in my opinion. Enter James Hook, 20 something years after his escape from Peter’s own personal dreamland, he is a man who regrets his choices but also wants to move on with his life. In a chance encounter on the streets of London, his previous life comes flooding back when a mysterious being begins picking off those around his and Wendy’s family. From here, he must make a decision – whether to embrace his life as a former Captain or forget everything that made him who is today.

The character of James could have come across as cocky and self-assured, pretending to still be the top of the societal food chain. Instead, he is fantastically flawed, quietly reliving all the trauma he was subjected to in Neverland. Although older and wiser, he still holds onto some of his old traits while also managing to shed others with the help of a rather squishy ship surgeon named Simon (I'm assuming this is a play on the character of Sam ‘Smee’ Smiegel but I am not the most familiar with the source material so I could very well be wrong). As the tale of Hook progresses, it becomes increasingly more obvious that Hook is burying more trauma than one would first think of the swashbuckling pirate we all loved to hate as children. Honestly, I was absolutely flawed with the vulnerability written in to him, I absolutely loved him being the central character to the narrative.

As is the case in Wendy, Darling, Hooked portrays the story through the use of flashbacks and time skips. I really appreciated that it followed the same sort of formula as its predecessor and I feel like it, for me, gave a fantastic insight into Hook’s gradual decline to withered old man from steel fisted tyrant. I also have to comment that the short but simple explanation of how the Captain initially lost his hand was both sensical (as sensical as a magical world can be) and amply long enough to satisfy the audience’s curiosity.

So, I’m going to wrap it up here because I will literally waffle for 2000 words and enter spoiler territory if I don’t. If you couldn’t already tell, I am completely in love with this retelling. Its punchy and fun but also plucks the heart strings (the final bit on the boat with Simon made me have to stifle my sobs in the middle of the night). While not the most perfectly structured tale, with the subject matter and the style of writing, it actually didn’t particularly phase me – this book is equal parts heart breaking and heartwarming and just gives those perfect fuzzies where sentence structure doesn’t matter. Overall, it's one of the best retellings I've read in a while

I really wanted to like this book, but it fought against me to the very end! This is a sequel it seems, but there is enough context for the story to still make sense. My issue is that it is painfully dull and inert. Dialogue between characters is scant and instead most of the prose consist of the internal (and incredibly boring) thoughts and struggles of Jane, Wendy's daughter, Hook, and briefly Wendy herself. Yes, there is a queer Captain Hook, which would have been so much stronger had there been any development or chemistry between he and his partner Samuel. Samuel could have been replaced by a sad dog; he doesn't interact much with Hook, save for looking at him (either "disappointed", "sad" or a mix of the two). None of these characters broke out as interesting, likable, or had much of a story. For whatever reason, the plan to return to the remains of Neverland is concocted, which one would think would launch the book into a much-needed adventure, but this occurs past the 60% complete point and is just as dull as the preceding pages. Having not read the first book, I don't know if this one served to answer some great open questions, but I highly doubt it. It takes a lot of skill to make Peter Pan so insanely boring.

Disclaimer: I had no idea this was a sequel to a previous book, I just saw Captain Hook and gay and stepped on the gas. It worked well as a stand alone, though there was obviously backstory I could tell I was missing in certain parts.

It was a much different book than I expected, and I enjoyed the surprise. James has certainly been through some shit, and he acts like it in the book. An evil Peter Pan isn't a new idea, but it's not overdone enough for me to not enjoy how this book handled it.

The romance was...interesting to say the least. I don't think it will be for everyone, especially if you prefer a happier ending but I like a good bit of darkness when it's called for. The book doesn't pull its punches in that aspect.

The first half of the book was slower and more character focused, but it really picked up the pace when we got back to Neverland. The way the book played with the neverland the reader is familiar with and twisted it into a dark reflection was fascinating. The last act in particular was fantastic and stuck with me for a bit after I finished.

If you're in the mood for some darkness and don't mind a little heartbreak then this is the book for you.

Hooked took everything I liked about Wendy, Darling (the writing, the queerness, the love/hate relationship with Neverland) and improved on it. Its storytelling is warm and tender and sometimes painful, it all feels so honest and compelling I felt glued to my kindle the entire time.
I recommend this with my whole heart, but do read Wendy, Darling first, as it will improve the understanding of the narrative and world-building.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for sending me this ARC!

2.75 stars, for me.

This book definitely got better towards the second half of it, but I really can't overlook this first half. It was just a little boring to me. I absolutely loved all the parts that took place in Neverland, but I really had to push myself through the parts in the present (so, the ones in London). This book just couldn't keep me entertained and that's such a shame because I loved the premise. It's also most likely an issue on my part, because I usually read a little more fast paced books. While it couldn't pull me in, I can definitely see how this might be a great book for someone else! :)
What I *did* love, was the writing style. It was great, A.C. Wise really knows how to spin words and that's something I appreciate.

If I'm honest, I don't really care that I didn't particularly enjoy this. Wendy, Darling was entertaining at the time that I read it but it was nothing amazing (I ended up giving it a 3.5☆). As this is a sort of sequel, I was expecting something equally as creepy and mysterious as the first one but I ended up getting a paranoid ex pirate and shadows. 20% into it I really wanted to dnf, but I pushed through, even though it gave me a small slump, which was not fun.

The story focuses on Hook and Jane. Wendy is more of a background-ish character in this, which I found sad since she was the character I liked last time. I hate Jane. She's really grating to read about and she's supposed to be an adult yet acts like a petulant teen. She even refers to everyone else as "the adults" which I found confusing since I understood that she was one too.

As for Hook, the only things I found interesting about his storyline was how he was perceived as the villain but was in fact tormented by Pan and his relationship with Samuel. Although the romance between Samuel and James was a fun addition, I found there was barely any chemistry. And him keeping his skull was creepy, not cute. His whole storyline, to me, was boring.

Other than that, the story had several points that confused me and I constantly had questions. Also the ending was predictable albeit satisfying I guess.

Overall, just not for me. I think it's mostly because it was so different from the first book, with no mystery/creepiness which was what I liked. Also, I don't really enjoy historical fiction so that may be a factor.

Thank you to A.C. Wise, Titan Books, and Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

It is safe to say that I am a sucker for fairytale retellings, especially when the source material was quite dark when one reads between the lines. This retelling was a fresh take on the well-known story with a more modern and feminist twist on it. The writing itself really draws you in both in its descriptions and characterizations of the main cast of characters. I will note that I am usually not a fan of books that can jump around in time from chapter to chapter, I did not mind the use of flashbacks in this story, and it was done quite tastefully to delve more into the characters and how they are impacted in the present/future storyline.

Ultimately I would love to read more from this author in the future, and I would recommend this to anyone even vaguely interested in retellings!

Following the success of Wendy, Darling, Hooked is set 8 years after the return to Neverland following Jane and Wendy and we get to learn about what happened to Hook and his crew.

I loved that we got to learn more about how evil Pan was, even to Hook, and that he never wanted to be the villain. He suffered countless deaths because of Peter and after being brought back to life a thousand times, he was ready to escape Neverland even though it came at a cost.

Hooked is faster pace than Wendy, Darling and I loved reading more of Jane now that she is grown up and the aftermath she still faces from being taken to Neverland. We also get more LGBTQ representation through Hook (I won’t spoil anything) which kept many of the themes from the first book.

Overall, this is a solid addition to the retelling genre-just make sure you read Wendy, Darling first!

Thank you to Titan and NetGalley for an eARC!