Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

Darling Girl

by Liz Michalski

A Book of The Month Club pick 

In this beautiful dive into the world of J. M. Barrie’s classic, one woman must take on the infamous Peter Pan—who is not the innocent adventurer the fairy tales make him out to be—to save her daughter’s life. . . .

Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she’s been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be responsible: Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but very dangerous.
 
Holly is desperate to find Eden and protect her son, Jack, from a terrible web of family secrets before she loses both her children. And yet she has no one to turn to—her mother, Jane, is the only other person in the world who knows that Peter is more than a story, but she refuses to accept that he is not the hero she’s always imagined.
 
Darling Girl brings all the magic of the classic Peter Pan story to the present, while also exploring the dark underpinnings of fairy tales, grief, aging, sacrifice, motherhood, and just how far we will go to protect those we love.

Reviewed by Quirky Cat on

3 of 5 stars

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Darling Girl is the latest in a series of retellings of Peter Pan. I've read a few of them and went into Darling Girl with high hopes. Written by Liz Michalski, this retelling decides to focus more on the Darling girls that make it all possible.

Holly Darling is one of the famous Darling girls. She's the granddaughter of the one and only Wendy Darling. The one from the famous Peter Pan story. It turns out that not everything her grandmother told was a fantasy. Much of it is based on the truth.

A fact that Holly knows all too well. She's worked hard to build a reputation and business for herself – a skincare company with her at the face of it all. Yet that all risks are coming down thanks to one fateful phone call. Holly's daughter is missing. A daughter that the world doesn't know about. To save her daughter, Holly will have to handle this personally.

“Time stopped for Holly the day of the car crash. She's been defying death, defying time, for all these years & she's not going to stop now.”

As I mentioned above, I had pretty high hopes for Darling Girl. I personally really like darker retellings. That's true for Peter Pan as well (though my favorites were all set in Neverland, as opposed to our world). Ultimately, I was a little disappointed with Darling Girl, though I'll admit that it was still an intriguing read.

Holly's story is far from clear, with the character and the author working hard to obfuscate the truth from us at every turn. As such, it took me a while to piece together the whole of her story. I'll admit that intrigue alone was enough to keep me reading for most of the book.

Likewise, her backstory is fairly bleak, having lost a husband and one child years prior. Still, she has two children and a successful business. The world only knows about one of the two children. However, I'll confess that despite all of this, I didn't like Holly. Or her mother...or any of the characters we got to know, for that matter. That may be part of the problem.

Moving on to other plot points, I was surprised by the focus on skincare and drugs in this book. In a way, it makes a certain level of sense. In another, it's still such a surprising twist. I'm still not sure how I feel about all of it.

Overall, I think that Darling Girl had a lot of potential. There were points where I enjoyed the book and points where I felt a little bit let down. It's still probably worth the read, especially for curious people.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

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  • Started reading
  • 1 July, 2022: Finished reading
  • 1 July, 2022: Reviewed