There's dark tetellings of fairy tales and then there's <i>dark</i> retellings, and then there's retellings whose authors seem to think <i>dark</i> means "make the story as gross and disgusting and nihilistic and nonsensically gloomy as you can."

<i>The Other Side of Never</i> has more of the latter than the former two. There were stories that were delightfully creepy, like Laura Mauro's "And On 'til Morning," and some with surprising psychological depth that makes you stop and think about what you've just read in case you've misunderstood it, like Robert Shearman's "Fear of the Pan-Child," but there's also stories like Lavie Tidhar's "A Visit to Kensington Gardens" so disjointed and confusing you wonder if the editors were sleeping the day this one slipped past them into the collection, or stories like Claire North's "A School for Peters" that are a hackneyed ripoff of <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> with a plot with less sense and worse build of its world. And the third type, the stories that make the character you least expect into a dark one you're not sure what to make of, like A. C. Wise's "Manic Pixie Girl" and Gama Ray Martinez's "Silver Hook."

As a whole, the lesser stories outnumber the good ones here. There were times when I had the impression the authors were deliberately and very obviously trying to gross the reader out by extra helpings of violent turns. And being short stories, this is all the more obvious when done for the sake of "dark." And it's not like I don't enjoy dark fairy tales (even though I don't believe Peter Pan is easily remade into dark retellings without major modifications), but I can tell when I'm reading a <i>See, this is dark and gory and edgy!</i> plot, and I don't like it.

Of course, there were stories that met the title's description and were dark, very dark whilst still being well-written and well-plotted. Those were my favourites, the best in the lot in my opinion:

<b>FEAR OF THE PAN-CHILD by Robert Shearman
4.5 stars</b>
My, was this one so very original and yet so disturbing! It's about a formerly bullied boy who is afraid of REDACTED and has to face this fear when his own son has to play REDACTED in a school play. The twists and turns need you to pay attention, or it'll not be likely you'll get it until the end. It's psychologically heavy, I had to reread some parts to make sure, I was that lost at times!

<b>THE OTHER SIDE OF NEVER by Edward Cox
4 stars</b>
This story should be in a How To Make Hook The Hero Without Sexifying Him standard textbook for Peter Pan retellers. Well, anti-heroic hero.
I wish this story had been longer, because the world is so intriguing. It's a dystopian world in which the Bad Guys descend from Wendy and have become the oppressors of this world. Until the Hook character comes in and kicks & overturns the chessboard. It's evident that there's more in this story just waiting there, and I want to see more of what follows next, I want to see how it all ends, I want...

<b>NO SUCH PLACE by Paul Finch
5 stars</b>
My favourite story! I blame Stoney M. Setzer for getting me addicted to fairy tale retellings from the POV of policemen, and it's a good addiction to have. In this one, Ronald McKane, a Scotland Yard officer who is a World War II veteran and more jaded and less gentle than Sheriff Dane but equally adorable in his own gruff way, has to investigate a series of murders that follow a Peter Pan-inspired pattern. Very dark and awful plot, but such a great story even if you don't like detective stories.
I'm subscribing to Mr Finch's Once Upon A Crime channel, too. He and Setzer should get together and write lotsa crime-ridden retellings each with their own man in his corner of the world, McKane in the UK and Carter in the US. Nice Bad Cop/Good Cop thing going on there, heh.

The anthology was worth it for these three stories, and introduced me to new authors I'd not known before and will hitherto be following to see what else they write.

Review : 3,75 /5
It was fun ! The novellas aren't all the same quality and I really liked the one by Lavie Tidhar and Claire north, which I adore ^^
Quite destabilized at first by the very dark and psychological side of the stories, it's finally what I would have preferred the most !

Not your mother's Peter Pan!!! If you could imagine an unusual story of Peter and the Lost Boys.......well, it might be in here. I love anthologies, they are the best way to discover new authors and even new genres. Most have a theme, this one is Peter Pan, anything Peter Pan could be found here. It's fascinating to read the varied author's vision of this children's story. If you're looking for something different, you've found it!

I read the name of some authors and couldn't help requesting this arc: Lavie Tidhar, Claire North, Edward Cox, Alison Littlewood are authors I appreciated and always loved their stories.
This is a book that starts with a bang and never stops keeping you reading and surprising you.
I discovered new to me author, enjoyed very dark story. Some are horror, some are disturbing, some are thriller.
There's a lot in this book and I strongly recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Award-winning editors Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane have gathered around them an impressive array of science fiction, horror, and fantasy writers to create a collection of dark and twisted tales inspired by J. M. Barrie's classic Neverland stories.

In one story, a murder investigation leads a detective to a strange and magical place called Neverland. In another story, students visit a school for Peters, while a boy must desperately try to find his lost shadow. These stories turn the original tales on their head and explore dark themes and unexpected settings, from dystopias to the gritty streets of London.

It's a solid anthology but I didn't really connect with most stories and DNF-ed some of them. An interesting take, for sure, but not the one that awed me.

What drew me to this book was not only the title but some of the authors and the description. The cover art is awesome too! Pretty much this was the whole package for me. I mean, c'mon! Peter Pan!? Yes. Please!🔥

Retellings of Peter Pan are one of my top favorites, and this book did not disappoint! This is not a "child friendly" book. This is very adult geared with the violence and topics. Quite a number of the stories are on the twisted and sadistic side. This was a good switch up from what I've been reading lately.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for the opportunity! All opinions are my own.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also some of the authors are personal friends.

This is a fairly narrow topic for an anthology and thus a dangerous one: there's a risk that a narrow anthology topic will result in stories that are on the one hand repetitive and same-y or on the other hand very tentatively connected to the theme. And this one brushes those guardrails on both sides while not crashing: there's a bit much of yes, we know James M. Barrie was a creepy so-and-so whose ideas of gender and sexuality were pretty gross, and also there are a few stories that are just barely Peter Pannish at all. But on the whole it's pretty deftly handled with enough of a spread to keep me from going "ugh not again" or "why this one though"--especially as I am not the world's biggest fan of the story. (See above re: creepy so-and-so, ideas of gender and sexuality etc.)

I particularly want to shout out A.C. Wise's story, "Manic Pixie Girl." Many times when you see an author who has successfully published multiple books related to a theme (Hooked and Wendy Darling, available from booksellers near you!) publishing a story in an anthology about that theme, their story is an offcut from those books, a chapter that didn't quite make it into the final version and has decent prose but doesn't really stand on its own as a story. The Gym Shoes of Shannara, we call those stories in my house: if you wanted to know every single unmagical detail of my magical world, step right up for some baaaaaackstoryyyyyy! Well, not only did Wise give us a complete and satisfying story rather than an offcut, she took an entirely different run at the Peter Pan concept with it than her novels did. That's artistic integrity, is what that is, and my favorite story of the volume to boot. No gym shoes here.

Other notable stories include Lavie Tidhar's "A Visit to Kensington Gardens," "Never Was Born His Equal" by Premee Mohamed, and "A House the Size of Me" by Alison Littlewood. I was a bit surprised that my favorites all tended to deal fairly directly with the subject matter rather than glancing off it, because I have no objections to a glancing inspiration, especially in this case, but that's how it happened to fall out this time. Those whose taste skews more firmly in the horror direction will find other stories appeal to them more, and that's how anthologies are supposed to work: different strokes for etc. etc.

A delicious compilation of dark and twisted stories inspired by the works of J.M Barrie and Peter Pan.

The book didn't take me long to finish, each story was engrossing and had many different themes.

A School for Peters made me think of Black Mirror, though another reviewer compared it to The Handmaid's Tale, which is probably more accurate.

Chasing Shadows gave me the feeling of reading a Goosebumps book, I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt as if I was a kid again reading R. L. Stine.

The Reed Remembers pulled inspiration both from Peter Pan and Greek mythos, two things I love.

All in all there is something for everyone and of all 18 stories, each was its own. Something which greatly impressed me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy of this book to read and review. All of these thoughts and comments are my own.

I’m a big fan of retellings, so when I seen this I had to request it. Peter Pan is one of my favorite characters to read retellings about. I’ve read so many and I love seeing other author’s twist on it.

These little short stories were brutal if I may say. They are dark and demented. These are kind of twisted tales and I would definitely say for an adult audience. I’ll also say that they were a tad boring in some parts. I thought this was going to be solely based on Peter Pan and it wasn’t. So it did lose a lot of my interest. Some stories were enjoyable and interesting and some just fell flat for me.

All in all, it wasn’t an awful book. Would I recommend it to others…probably not because I don’t really know many people who like reading dark and twisted retellings like I do.

3.5 stars.

You never know what to expect when you have a book with multiple writers takes, and it was the Doctor Who authors that interested me, as someone who hadn't read the original JM Barrie book but thought I knew it through the various media I found the takes on nuances of the stories fun, and varied, and it has encouraged me to see out the Barrie original novel..

3.5 stars

If this is what they call "Fairytales for grown ups" , then I definitely need to be reading more fairytale.
They're dark, and some of them as sinister as hell.
I shuddered on more than one equation.
Was never keen on Peter and Tink, now I might well add the whole cast of characters to that.
A delightfully creepy book

Peter Pan will never grow up, but these grown up tales will have your skin crawling in horror. Perfect for the Disney Adult with a darker side to them.