Darling by K. Ancrum
pages: 288
released: June 2021
publisher: Imprint (Macmillan)
cover love: ♥♥♥♥♥

On Wendy Darling’s first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He’s dizzying, captivating, beautiful—so she agrees to join him for a night on the town. Wendy thinks they’re heading to a party, but instead they’re soon running in the city’s underground. She makes friends—a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies—the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister secrets start coming to light. Can Wendy find the courage to survive this night—and make sure everyone else does, too? (from Goodreads)

Review:

So unfortunately I did not enjoy Darling…in fact, several times, I had to debate whether or not to DNF the book. But I hate doing that (don’t ask me why) so I trudged on. What drew me to Darling was the premise, I was really sold on a retelling (in general, I love retellings) of Peter Pan.

The book starts off with us meeting the Darlings: a husband, wife and teenage daughter named Wendy who move back to the city side of Chicago after many years. Her parents go out one night and Wendy is visited by a boy (Peter Pan) who is there to rob her house (?). Instead of freaking out and calling the cops, she decides to take the boy up on his offer of a night out to a party. But getting to the party seems more trivial than she thought. During this night out, she meets Tinkerbell and a lot of boys that live or hang out with Peter (aka the Lost Boys, too many to name). There’s Detective Hook, who’s after Peter and his friends, and “the Crocodile”, who isn’t really a large amphibian but a large bouncer. There’s also an online friend of Wendy’s named Eleanor that she’s never met IRL.

So where did Darling and I go wrong?

I felt like it lacked…substance.

Darling never got passed the surface level. It was missing a certain edge; a tone, if you will. You’re expecting a darker, modern experience with these classic characters and I just wasn’t picking up that vibe during my reading experience.

I felt like I was being told of the dangers that were going to unfold but I didn’t ever feel like there was a true threat for most of the book. I felt like this book also hosted a big cast of unnecessary characters. Most of them were part of Peter’s inner circle yet they all had a very present distaste for him. Yet I couldn’t fathom why they really hated this character so much and why they chose to stay within his group. Especially if there were other, safer options. Some of these characters had families that they went home to every night. So again, the danger seemed invalid. I don’t think all these characters needed a role to play in the story, they could have been condensed into maybe three solid characters and the others could’ve been notable mentions. Because it became exhausting to have to read about each and every characters’ facial expressions/body language/whereabouts on every other page. As for the characters’ personalities, I really didn’t read anything about them that was remarkable or worthy of remembering. They were just kinda there to fill space. On the plus side, the characters are from different nationalities and some are LGBTQ.

The plot was another issue for me. I just didn’t buy into this “danger” that Wendy was in or some of the sequence of events that transpired. Some of the scenarios just seemed pointless to the actual plot. It wasn’t a fun or thrilling night out with Wendy, it was more like she was getting dragged around, being primed and styled and watching everyone else’s faces and body movements. This book really lacked excitement, which sucked because it seemed to possess all the right ingredients for a lot of shit to go down. But it was mostly just Wendy going from one place to another via the CTA (buses and trains) with a bunch of people she’s not comfortable with.

So the plot does finally thicken…15% before the book ends.

And by then I was so uninvested in the story, it barely registered as being thought provoking. Had some of that information come to light around maybe the 50% mark, I think the story would have gone in a better direction. The characters’ hatred and fear of Peter and their motivations would have started to make sense.

I went into Darling really excited to see what this book had to offer but unfortunately it was dry and did not hold up to my expectations.

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