Review: Stolen

Title: Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Source: library

It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him. This is my story. A letter from nowhere. 

Told in a letter to her captor by 16-year-old Gemma, Stolen explores the influence that a really wild and remote space can have on the inner development of a young woman.

Gemma, a British city-living teenager, is kidnapped while on holiday with her parents. Her kidnapper, Ty, takes her to the wild land of outback Australia. To Gemma’s city-eyes, the landscape is harsh and unforgiving and there are no other signs of human life for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Here, there is no escape. Gemma must learn to deal with her predicament, or die trying to fight it.

Ty, a young man, has other ideas for her. His childhood experience of living in outback Australia has forever changed the way he sees things. But he too has been living in the city; Gemma’s city. Unlike Gemma, however, he has had enough. In outback Australia he sees an opportunity for a new kind of life; a life more connected to the earth. He has been watching and learning about Gemma for many years; when he kidnaps her, his plan finally begins to take shape.

But Ty is not a stereotypical kidnapper and, over time, Gemma comes to see Ty in a new light, a light in which he is something more sensitive. The mysteries of Ty, and the mystery of her new life, start to take hold. She begins to feel something for her kidnapper when he wakes screaming in the night. Over the time spent with her captor, Gemma’s appreciation of him develops …but is this real love, or Stockholm Syndrome?

Nancy’s Review:

This book… omg. So good. It was such a powerful book, with a great story. When I first began reading it I wasn’t sure that I would like it, mainly because it was written as one long letter. I’m not too fond of books like that. However, I was definitely proved wrong. Stolen was fantastic. I loved the way that it was written and the way that Lucy Christopher was able to put onto paper such strong feelings and emotions. Ty’s love for Gemma was so strong, it was leaping off the pages! I felt like I was the one with Stockholm Syndrome, like I could really understand Ty and what he was feeling. I even felt sorry for him and for all the hardships that he had to face in his life.

I felt somewhat different towards Gemma. She wasn’t really a prominent part of the book for me. Yes, she was the main character, but my focus was on Ty. He was the kidnapper, the person who no one ever understands or wants to understand. Stolen highlighted what was going on in Ty’s head, well… from what Gemma shared with the reader. She made Ty human and showed us that he was just like everyone else, the only difference was that he had made a bad mistake (kidnapping her).

As I said before, Stolen was absolutely fantastic. I don’t have anything bad to say about it. It’s definitely on my list of favorite books, it’s a must-read! Everyone should go read it now!