Wendy, Darling

Jean Rhys gave me the story of Bertha, Rochester's first wife, in Wide Sargasso Sea. Seanan McGuire made me consider what happens to children when they come home from their otherworld adventures. AC Wise gives me the story of Wendy, and what happens after Neverland, and the reality about Peter Pan.

Peter Pan is an awful person.

(I should note that it's well more than 20 years since I read Peter Pan, so it's possible that I've missed some of the more subtle and clever nuances that Wise brings to the story. (And to be honest when Hook was mentioned, my brain immediately went to Dustin Hoffman...). Clearly, though, this is not a problem for appreciating the novel, Whether it would be as thoroughly appreciated with zero knowledge of the original is unclear; I suspect it would be fine, given the depth of story about Wendy as a human, but some of the references might be a bit weird.)

_Wendy, Darling_ presents its story over a few different timelines: Wendy in Neverland. Wendy after World War 1, when she is committed - by her brothers - to an asylum. Wendy married, and a mother. And the story of Jane, Wendy's daughter... I think you can guess what happens to Jane.

This book is amazing. This book is compulsive reading (I read it in 24 hours, and it only took that long because ugh, life). This book is sharp and piercing and reflects on a whole lot of the issues that the (white, patriarchal) world has come aware of since Barrie wrote his original. (Uh, hi there Tiger Lily....) And this book balances being well-paced and driven by action in some parts, with being deeply reflective and thoughtful in other parts. You know how sometimes you get to a different timeline in a story and you're all "get on with it! get back to the other bit!"? That never happened here.

It's about memory, and family, and loss, and compromise, and fidelity. The pain and the joy of growing up, the complexity of relationships, how much we can hurt the ones we love and how we can make our own families. And the fierce, wonderful, difficulty of life.

I just love it. Everyone should read it. It should be nominated for all the awards.

'𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒍𝒚'

What a book this was!

This was a truly beautiful, darkly gothic reimagining of Peter Pan & Neverland. 🧚

The story was retold from Wendy's present view as she ventures back to Neverland to rescue daughter Jane & from the past where she spent time in an asylum when she refused to forget Neverland.

Extremely well crafted, with recognition to J.M. Barries original story, this is the fairy tale retelling that you will never forget!

Wendy Darling is now married & has her own daughter Jane, but has never forgotten Peter & Neverland. Peter returns for Wendy, but doesn't understand that she's grown up now, so takes her daughter Jane thinking she's his Wendy. Now it's down to Wendy to return to Neverland to reclaim her daughter.

Many thanks to Netgalley for my ARC in return for my honest review.

𝗜 𝗴𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮 5 ⭐ 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

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/

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

A retelling of my favourite childhood story Peter Pan? Yes please.

Remember Peter being all happy and fun and cute ? Yeah well that changed. I always wanted to go to Neverland with him, Wendy and the other brothers... but after reading this, I think I’ll burn my golden ticket.

I’ve always wondered, what happened to Wendy, John and Michael... if you’ll read this book you’ll find out. Do they have a happy ending after they came back to London ? Nope they don’t. And I think this book described a real “not so happily ever after” it was reality. If someone was going to scream through the streets in the 1930s that’s there’s a boy that could fly, yeah people weren’t gonna laugh, they locked you up.

But years later Wendy got a daughter herself. And Wendy got badass. She ain’t your mother no more Peter, she’s your nightmare.

I loved it ! Okay yes, maybe it ruined a bit my childhood, reading what I read in this book, but it was so well written, and such an amazing story!
It really gave you the reality after a happy ending. And you know, after a happy ending, life goes on...