Tiger Lily in Our Shared Shelf

Jan 20, 2015 Lacey Louwagie rated it liked it

Shelves: youngadult, retelling, fantasy, 100-book-challenge-2015

I wanted to read this book for a long time -- so long that, after I started it and a friend told me it wasn't worth my time, I insisted that I soldier on, anyway. I don't regret finishing it, but it wasn't necessarily worth the wait.

What sticks with me the most is the book's vivid portrayal of Tiger Lily -- I can still call to mind her combination of awkwardness and fierceness; she was flawed and she felt real to me. I also appreciate the author's decision to make Tiger Lily a member of an imagi I wanted to read this book for a long time -- so long that, after I started it and a friend told me it wasn't worth my time, I insisted that I soldier on, anyway. I don't regret finishing it, but it wasn't necessarily worth the wait.

What sticks with me the most is the book's vivid portrayal of Tiger Lily -- I can still call to mind her combination of awkwardness and fierceness; she was flawed and she felt real to me. I also appreciate the author's decision to make Tiger Lily a member of an imaginary tribe, to further distance her from all the racism and complication of the portrayal of Native Americans in the source material and the adaptations that follow. Finally, her story seems so ripe for exploration -- there is a hint that she and Peter have some sort of history in the original story, and I'm glad someone finally picked it up and explored it.

I didn't mind the ways this story deviated from the original -- that is the prerogative of any author writing a retelling. It brought both familiarity and newness to the story of Peter Pan, and it struck a fairly good balance between the two, although I thought it took way too long to get moving; you have to read about 1/3 of the book before Peter shows up, and you only glimpse Wendy in the final chapters.

Ah, the final chapters, where the book goes a bit off the rails and the character of Tiger Lily, so carefully developed up to this point, is allowed to unravel without much thought at all, so much so that it almost ruined the book. This book is unsuccessful in a lot of other ways, too, not the least of which is the writing story. It feels rushed and clunky with an occasional gem of description or insight that is a bit disorienting against the general sloppiness. The choice to tell the story from Tinkerbelle's perspective felt like a cheap trick, too. The author seemed to treat her character as an afterthought, and the "fairy society" she sometimes referenced did not feel believable or real to me at all. Once in a while she would have to intrude with some reminder that she was a fairy, since her ability to "mind read" to a certain extent just made her feel like an omniscient narrator. And if that's what it's going to feel like, why not just have an omniscient narrator?

Unfortunately, this is one of those books that coasts forward more on potential than substance. ...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Dana Berglund rated it liked it

Shelves: youngadult

Surprising, given the title, but this book is actually narrated by Tinkerbell. It is almost as much her own story as that of Tiger Lily's, and she's not the fairy I thought she was. The fairies' state of begin mute makes her the perfect observer of the development and dissolution of the relationship between Tiger Lily and Peter.
Before reading this, I hadn't thought much about Tiger Lily--I never remembered much of her in the versions of Peter Pan's story that I have encountered. Admittedly, I h ...more

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Jun 04, 2017 Kristen rated it really liked it

3.5 stars

Anderson breathes life into peripheral characters from Peter Pan, giving them detailed and exquisite backstories and motivation...almost at the expense of the plot...which I can forgive because it was beautiful anyway. Aside from Tiger Lily, she made the characters of Smee, Hook, the mermaids, and the Lost Boys far more than archetypes or one note, and she invented new characters to support Tiger Lily's motives and actions; I loved Tik Tok. ...more

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