Review: Stolen by Lucy Christopher

Title: Stolen

Author: Lucy Christopher 

Publisher: Chicken House

Published: May 4th 2009 

Paperback 301 pages.

Gooodreads summary; 

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. Sixteen year old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back? The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don't exist - almost.

How can I review this book? Its 8.25pm on a cold December night, three days away from Christmas and all I can think about is the story that Lucy Christopher just shared with me. I feel like I was given this precious gift, a part of her soul really. It’s like this with every book I think, especially the very good ones. But this is different, this is a first for me.

Gemma is only sixteen when she is taken away from her family, from her friends and her entire life into the hands of a horrible monster. She is picked up from an airport and plucked into a hot desert where the land wants to kill you, with the fear of what her captor will do to her.

“How long will you keep me?" I asked.
You shrugged. "Forever, of course.” 

There is nothing out there like this story. Nothing. This book captures the true essence of what it’s like to fear somebody and to be scared for your life.

Gemma is a very strong protagonist, she was scared, even ready to die at the hands of her captor but she had hope.

Ty is a troubled man who had a hard life, he’s strong physically but emotionally he’s damaged.

I still can’t believe just how great Gemma’s character was! I can already imagine more than half of the female characters in young adult books now and how they could react in this situation. Gemma was different. She was scared but she willed herself to try and run away. She wanted to escape even if it killed her.

This is a letter from Gemma to her captor; written in detail of everything she experienced and felt throughout her time with Ty and honestly how much can you write about a month or so? How long can you make a letter out of this? I was incredibly sceptical of the format that it was written in, I mean it shows Gemma’s true feelings but how much can really happen in a sunny desert with nobody else around? Apparently a lot, this was a fantastic idea, especially for the beginning and the end of the novel.

My mind couldn’t keep up and my heart never settled on what I thought of Ty, just like Gemma. There was this character who has done wrong but is so hurt and is so delusional that you cannot help but forgive him for his wrong doings.

“and it’s hard to hate someone once you understand them.”

My heart was in my throat until the very last word on the page. What does Gemma think of this and what do I think of this. I was so conflicted because I wanted Gemma to love him. I wanted her to forgive him, to somehow be with him?! I think I was the one suffering through Stockholm syndrome. I was never nervous when Gemma was scared of Ty, I was never scared for her when she was trying to escape him. I always had hope.

Review: Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Living Dead Girl Elizabeth Scott
Published: September 8th 2009
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Goodreads Summary

The thing is, you can get used to anything. You think you can't, you want to die, but you don't. You won't. You just are. This is Alice. She was taken by Ray five years ago. She thought she knew how her story would end. She was wrong.

Is it possible to write a poetic book about kidnapping and imprisonment of a child? I 

guess the answer here is yes. This is a really hauntingly, disturbingly beautiful short 

novel which features a horrific crime. 

“I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. 

Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now 

beats.”

15 year old “Alice” was lured into Ray’s car when she was ten, taken from a field trip into 

Shady Pines where she was conditioned to become another person. The horrific physical 

and emotional abuse was flowing through the book without having to be spelt out and 

shouted at the reader. Although the pain that is endured by the character isn’t explicit 

It’s still a hard story to read. The fact that there have been and are children that are 

being put through this right now is horrifying and this book shows you a slight insight. 

To say that Elizabeth Scott managed to capture the horror of the characters capture in a 

rather beautiful way is an understatement. I didn’t think that a story could leave scars, 

but this book certainly has. I haven’t stopped thinking about it for weeks. 

“She became a story, one I have mostly forgotten. One I can't end because she died a 

long time ago.”

Scott manages to draw you in with her unique writing, the fact that the chapters start 

with “Once Upon a Time” when reciting what happened to “Alice” when she was 

younger is unforgettable, it plays on the fact that it’s telling a atrocious thing that 

happened to a young girl while starting it off with a popular fairy tale opening. 

I wasn’t expecting this book to cover all the basics, the characters back stories were 

detailed in the small amount of words that this book required. For a second I felt sorry 

for the monster and for what Ray was doing, knowing his loveless upbringing and the 

abuse that he received from his mother was enough for me to know why he became the 

monster he is, it was enough for me to sympathise with him. I didn’t even think that I 

would have been able to image the horror and the experience of someone that was so 

much abused. I didn’t think it was possible for an author to even describe such a thing in 

a book; I felt as if I was right there with Alice throughout her torture, throughout the 

control he had over her. I felt trapped in this character and felt as if I was living her 

story. 


This was labelled as a young adult novel, I know so many bloggers have already 

mentioned the fact that it shouldn’t have but I disagree. This is exactly what mature 

teenagers need to read. Everyone should read this. I am now carrying this story around 

with me everywhere I go.

Review: Make You Mine by Macy Beckett

Make You Mine by Macy Beckett
Series: Dumont Bachelors #1
Date Published: May 6th 2014
Publisher: HeadlineEternal
Amazon Book Depository 

Goodreads Summary 

For ninety-nine years, every man in the Dumont family has remained a perpetual bachelor. Residents of Cedar Bayou, Louisiana, whisper about a voodoo hex cast upon the family, sabotaging each man’s chance at marriage. In truth, the Dumont men have their own player personalities to blame, and Marc is no exception. As captain of his family’s riverboat, he’s broken hearts up and down the Mississippi. That is, until his high school crush strolls onboard... Allie Mauvais rocks the boat when she fills in as pastry chef. She hasn’t seen Marc since senior year, when rumors flew that her great-great-grandmother was the one who cursed the Dumonts. After two weeks on the water, neither can deny the attraction that still burns between them. But to truly reach Marc’s heart, Allie must show him that the hex isn’t real, and it’ll take more than her mouthwatering sweets to prove it. Will Allie’s love be enough to finally make Marc hers?

I was very lucky to receive a copy of this from Headline for an honest review.

For 90 years the Dumont men have been afraid of commitment, always having flings and never settling down. All because of one man and one voodoo hex cast on their whole family. Until they break it.

Allie Mauvais the great-great granddaughter of the famous voodoo witch who put the curse on the Dumont men is in love with no one other than Marc who’s in fact one of the men bearing this hex.

I would have most likely hated this book with a passion if it wasn’t for the hex and the whole voodoo deal in this book. But believe me I wasn’t so thrilled about it. I was looking for a fun chick lit to read and I found it. Although the main story of this book is as original as using a pick up line to talk to girls. But I kind of wanted something  like this.

The whole girl meets boy (or in this book they already knew each other and run into each other after a few years) either girl or boy does the chase, they end up together in a night or a week of passion, break up, realise that they are made for each other and end up together forever riding into the sunset.

I did say I wanted something like this but I did hope that there was more to the story and there was. The voodoo and the hex on the men. It was interesting to say the least. But boring. And stupid. I thought it was rather stupid that a whole town believed in this! I still can’t wrap my head around how all of these people believed that the Dumont men were hexed and couldn’t commit and not because they loved their bachelors lives. At least it made the book somewhat original.

There were some things that I loved! For example the strong family bonds in this book. The relationship between Allie and her sister was amazing. It was so refreshing to read a book that’s got this strong family feel to it. Allie is a great character! She’s a strong female role that goes after what she wants and has a really big heart! But she uses the word “baby” a lot… So… She isn’t that great.

This book is a fast read and it’s really pleasant. I enjoyed myself reading this book but I didn’t love it. The ending took me about three days to finish because I couldn’t stomach it. It was just too over the top. 

ARC Review: And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

Title- And We Stay
Author- Jenny Hubbard
Published- January 28th 2014
Publisher- Delacorte Press
Buy- Amazon

Goodreads Summary 

Sent to an Amherst, Massachusetts, boarding school after her ex-boyfriend shoots himself, seventeen-year-old Emily expresses herself through poetry as she relives their relationship, copes with her guilt, and begins to heal.

I was lucky enough to receive this book from Netgalley to review. I mean look at that cover and the blurb for this book! I expected so many great things. So why exactly was I so disappointed?

After Emily’s boyfriend shoots himself in the school’s library after a bad breakup and finding out that a girl he was in love with was getting rid of their unplanned baby. After the abortion, Emily is sent to a boarding school for girls where she wants to find herself and deal with both losses. The book seemed very excitingly mysterious with Emily’s life being a tragedy with her only escape being poetry. The blurb for this book looks amazing. Tragedy, loss, poetry and mystery; what else would a girl want in a book?  

I could not connect with Emily at all. Nor with any other character in this book. The book is set in 1995 in third person; which bored the life out of me. Usually I don’t really mind a book being written in third person but how was I meant to connect with the character and her feelings when I didn’t know what was going on in her head?!

The poems were obviously meant to be the way for me to connect and understand Emily more, but I hated every single poem by Emily. I started to skip them after about reading ten of them. I usually love poems and trying to figure out what they mean and what they can all mean to me. However I’m not one of Emily Dickinson’s fans so all the facts about her life, and some poems from her really did nothing for me; seeing as Emily Dickinson was a big part of the book, really did no favours for me.

I continued reading this book because it’s an ARC and it just felt wrong to stop reading the book. However I wish I never bothered with even requesting the book. The blurb, the cover and the title mislead me. I actually thought that this book might be about ghosts (her boyfriend did kill himself after all).