paperback, 206 pages
Published Feb. 9, 2017 by Less Than Three Press.
Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.
But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.
Whether you ecape to OZ or Neverland there will always be rainbows and fairies. I'll never be able to see the original story again without feeling it was somehow whitewashed. The dynamics of this telling are so relatable on an emotional level for queer people that it makes it a much richer mythos.
Transmasc Peter Pan (Assigned Wendy At Birth) returns to Neverland much older, preferring the lost boys to an asylum for his failure to conform to feminine norms. Now he resumes a very bloody war with Captain Hook with all the bravado and arrogance of his youth. Yet as he realises how artificial the world is, how it bends to his whim, he starts to fall for the one other real thing in Neverland; James Hook.
I adore this book. It’s sweet, powerful and wonderfully in tone with the original while challenging its core tenets. Neverland is Peter’s escape from the reality of his unaccepting family, a life he wants to forget. Now he throws himself into his own fantasy, his own powerful storytelling which Neverland relents to. And then to see things from Hook’s side, his past and his feelings for Peter are an absolute treasure.
I love this book. It is a wonderful, clever twist on Peter Pan that I haven't seen before, with a deeper meaning that was never implied in the original but seems obvious now, somehow. The writing is excellent and fits in well with the tone of the original imo. As a mother, parts of this are heart-wrenching. As a reader, this started off as a fanciful tale with threads of realism that developed into an authentic story of the re-discovery - and acceptance - of self, and the value of acceptance.
This book is very sweet, and while I don't normally go for romances, I really liked this one. I cried more in this book than any other I can think of, which perhaps says more about my own trans feelings than about this book in particular, but I think that's worthy superlative for the text.
All that said, I think a few points got lost in the weeds, and the third human character in neverland who's name I've forgotten got a short shrift in a plot that is very much about the central romance.
