Never Never

by Brianna Shrum

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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Actual rating: 2.5 stars

For as long as I've known about retellings, I've been on the lookout for a truly amazing YA retelling of Peter Pan. I am convinced that, if done right, this hypothetical retelling would skyrocket up to one of my favorite books of all time. In my head, it just has so much potential.

I saw that potential in Never Never when I first heard about it. However, after finishing it, I can say with certainty that this void in my life -- the one waiting to be filled with the perfect Peter Pan retelling -- is still empty.

From the very beginning, I got the feeling that Never Never probably wouldn't be skyrocketing up to my favorites anytime soon, but I held out hope that I could still really enjoy it. As I continued on, however, reading this book became more and more of a struggle.

While not bad, the writing itself was definitely not my cup of tea for a longer book. It had a sort of "classic children's fairy-tale" vibe to it, which can be good; but in Never Never's case, I had a couple of issues with that. First off, the writing gives the impression of a younger-YA/upper-middle-grade book, and yet the content definitely veers into upper-YA territory later on in the story. That sort of disconnect between tone and content always ends up feeling... weird, to me, to say the least. Mostly, though, my main issue was that I felt like the writing was almost exclusively telling. This was one of those instances where I was reading, and something was bothering me about the way the story was being told, and I couldn't put my finger on it, until it smacked me in the face and the telling was all I could see for the rest of the book. Emotions, motivations, character development -- I felt like it was all spelled out.

And that single issue heavily influenced my perception of every other aspect of Never Never, especially the most important thing, to me -- the characters. Never Never is basically a retelling of Peter Pan, but it might also accurately be called a sort of prequel -- at least, the first three-quarters of it until Never Never catches up with where the original story begins.

The difference between Never Never and the original, though, is that Never Never is James Hook's story. And as awesome as "Hook is the main character!" sounds, and as much potential as a darker "backstory" for these characters could have been, I absolutely could not connect with Hook or his story. The emotions, all told, fell flat for me. As the plot progresses, I think the reader is supposed to feel sympathy (to an extent) for Hook's tragic plight, stuck in Neverland because of Peter Pan, but I couldn't get invested in his character or his struggles.

Later in the story, there is a bit of romance, which I was hoping might help with my lack of investment -- a lot of the time, if there's a ship I can get on board with, I can ignore a heck of a lot of dislikes elsewhere. But unfortunately, that whole relationship was fraught with even more issues, and ended up being another source of disappointment and frustration for me.

Finally, I also had some issues with the plot -- which felt to me like it lacked any sort of clear direction. There's the whole "Hook wants to kill Pan" scenario, of course; but that didn't feel like an actual "plot" to me. Beyond that, Never Never just... meandered. Looking back on it, I don't know why it was so long, when the plot felt so very thin.

 
In conclusion...

Honestly, I probably should have DNF'd this one, but for some reason, I kept reading. I think this was mostly a case of wanting so badly for the book to finally grab my emotions, but that never happened. A boat-load of "telling" is one of the best ways to distance me from any story, and Never Never kept me at arms' length the entire time. I wish I could say the ending, at least, was solid; but by that point, the (lack of) plot and disappointing character arcs had let me down so badly that the conclusion just felt predictable and emotionally unsatisfying.

I do think a lot of people will still enjoy this one, because of the novelty of a darker, YA Peter Pan with Hook as the main character and Peter as the antagonist. But despite desperately wanting to love it, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

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There were books involved...