Book Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Release Date: July 3, 2012

Publisher: Harper Teen

Pages: 292

Received: Barnes and Noble

Star Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆








Summary:
                  Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

My Thoughts: ---no spoilers

“Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we're only what we've done and what we are going to do.”

Disney's "Peter Pan" movies were my childhood and I couldn't resist picking up the book. Tiger Lily makes me feel as if I'm still in Neverland, but sooner or later I have to meet reality. 

I love that Tiger Lily was told in Tinker bell's point of view, other than Tiger Lily's. Tinker Bell was a fantastic observer for Tiger Lily and everyone else as well. She could easily uncover Tiger Lily's thoughts and we learned more about her, too. Tinker Bell is as human as us and has feelings for others (like us). We see Tinker Bell's respect towards Tiger Lily's bravery. We now fully understand Tink's jealousy and her actions for it. 

The first 70 pages was more of Tiger Lily's back story and of Neverland's. I enjoyed the rest of the book, but the intro was a little slow. The rest of the page-turning plot made up for those 70 steady pages. When I just finally got used to Tiger Lily, I really never made a bother to care about her. I knew her as a sad girl who meets a lonely boy. But she is so much more. Jodi Lynn Anderson makes Tiger Lily matter to you, even when you don't care. Anderson was so brilliant while writing Tiger Lily and I imagined it vividly as it was made from Disney.

I'm a total Wendy Darling fan. I was very excited to read more about her, but she came in the story around 250 pages in. In this case, It made sense to show Tiger Lily and Peter's story. Tiger Lily was betrothed to the awful Giant and everyone fears her. With her sneak outs to meet Peter and the Lost Boys, touched my heart and skipped a beat. Peter seems different from the Peter we were very first introduced to. I can't seem to put my finger on it, but maybe he IS less innocent. But daring and beautiful, nonetheless.

Tiger Lily is alluring and exquisite. It breaks your heart, but repairs it in the last given few pages. It's realistic quality makes the story more vivid and real. While the ending is not a happy ending, it's compelling and makes you think deep into how not every fairy tale has a happy ending. It captures the reader into Neverland and makes reality a horror.

4.5/5 STARS