Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen
Author: Lisa Jensen
Series: None
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: July 8, 2014
Genre: Fiction; Historical Fiction; Fantasy; Retelling; Romance; Adventure; Adult
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
"Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked
pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile
who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It's
my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with
that infernal, eternal boy."
Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan's rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels, to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes, to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook. And in the pirate captain himself, she begins to see someone far more complex than the storybook villain.
With Stella's knowledge of folk and fairy tales, she might be Hook's last chance for redemption and release if they can break his curse before Pan and his warrior boys hunt her down and drag Hook back to their neverending game. Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen is a beautifully and romantically written adult fairy tale.
Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan's rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels, to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes, to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook. And in the pirate captain himself, she begins to see someone far more complex than the storybook villain.
With Stella's knowledge of folk and fairy tales, she might be Hook's last chance for redemption and release if they can break his curse before Pan and his warrior boys hunt her down and drag Hook back to their neverending game. Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen is a beautifully and romantically written adult fairy tale.
A twisted retelling of Peter Pan for adults, this story shines a light on the classic fairy tale of Peter Pan never seen before. James Hook is an adult in the rotten, cursed world of Neverland, and he is doomed to be haunted by that horrible Peter Pan over and over again. He can’t die, but his men can, and he must live with the burden of watching them fight to the death in an endless cycle. Only he can survive, even when what he wants more than anything is to die. He’s a living, breathing pawn of Peter Pan’s game, and there is no way out. Until, Stella Parish decides to make a surprise (and forbidden) appearance. Unsure of how she got to the world of Neverland, Hook is sure she was sent there for a reason. And that reason may just be his escape.
I never realized it until after reading this book that Peter Pan is a spoiled, ungrateful little brat who is too bloodthirsty for his own good. I love kids, but Peter Pan is not a kid. He is a monster who exists only to torture Captain Hook. Think about it: in the story, Peter Pan cuts off Hook’s hand and then feeds it to a crocodile. It’s kind of sick, actually.
Despite all the times I was this close to chucking this book across the room whenever Pan ruined things, I understood on some level the importance of his character and Hook’s characters. While they seem like foils in the original story, in this retelling, you see that they are the same. Pan is Hook, and Hook is, on some level, Pan. They are afraid of the same things and have different types of crippling innocence and guilt. They are both scared of growing up and moving on, but in the end, at least one of them learns how to do just that.
Everything was so unexpected and even when it seemed wrong, it worked out to be so right. There was the dark underbelly of Peter Pan, and then there was the soft side of the scary Captain Hook. You could finally understand his defeat, his loss of life when he was stolen and taken into the cruel world of Neverland. It was impressive, the emotion I felt alongside the characters of the story.
I was astounded by the artful remastering of J.M. Barrie’s classic, the phenomenal attention to detail in its remaking, and the addictive story line that hardly allowed me a moment’s break. This is still a tale of growing up, but it is also a story of defying your destiny.
No comments:
Post a Comment