Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson: Review

Tiger Lily
By Jodi Lynn Anderson
Published by HarperTeen July 3rd 2012
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Synopsis borrowed from Goodreads:

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .
Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Darkfallen's thoughts:

I was sooooo excited when I got my hands on this from HarperCollins. I ripped open the mail and literally jumped up and down...unfortunately that was where the excitement stopped. First I want to start by saying that I think most people are going to love this book. That it's just not the book I thought it was going to be and there for not for me. When I first heard that it was a retelling of Peter Pan about a love with Tiger Lily I couldn't wait! I thought it was going to be more like all the ret...moreI was sooooo excited when I got my hands on this from HarperCollins. I ripped open the mail and literally jumped up and down...unfortunately that was where the excitement stopped. First I want to start by saying that I think most people are going to love this book. That it's just not the book I thought it was going to be and there for not for me. When I first heard that it was a retelling of Peter Pan about a love with Tiger Lily I couldn't wait! I thought it was going to be more like all the retellings that I have come to love so much. The one with a modern day take on a fairytale. I children's story that had been twisted and morphed into a YA novel. Well this simply wasn't that. The story is still very much a children's story. I would venture to say that it's more of a dark Middle Grade novel and when it comes to my books I don't really tend to like anything that goes younger than YA. Now for all the parents out there, please note that I didn't make it past 65 pages so don't just assume that this book is suitable for your ten year old. It very well may not be once you get further into the book. Unfortunately, I will never know. Still that isn't the only problem I have with this book. In fact it's not even the main one. My main problem is the POV that the story is told from. It's told for Tinker Bells POV and it took me reading through some review to even figure that out. After the first 30 pages I was so lost, because I couldn't even figure out who was telling the story, that I stopped and started scanning reviews to see if I could figure it out. That's when I found out that it was in fact Tinker Bell telling the story through her observations. This just brought up more issues for me. First of all, sometimes Tinker would be speaking in first person POV about things happening to her, or that she was doing. Then they would switch to third person POV when she was describing Tiger Lil or the others. It just made things confusing and hard to follow. It left me feeling lost most of the time. Also I never felt connected with Tiger Lily of Peter Pan because I simply couldn't get into their heads. Coming from Tinker Bells' POV you just don't know what the main characters are thinking and feeling. It's almost like there is a great void in between you and the characters because of this. I honestly think that if this story was written in the third person POV from Pan or Tiger Lily I would have enjoyed it more. I maybe even would have loved it as I was hoping. Overall, while I think tons of Pan fans are going to love this book, It was just not for me. It breaks my heart to say that this is the first retelling that I just didn't like...

Lymi...