Stolen Review

Stolen: A letter to my captor
by Lucy Christopher
From Goodreads:

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.

My Thoughts: Very interesting premise, and I liked how the Australian landscape acted like a character. The ending is satisfying without being neatly, and unrealistically, tied up. I was expecting more violence on the part of the kidnapper, but the creepiness of his history with Gemma was an unexpected bonus. And although I said the ending was fairly realistic, I found the character of Ty not to be.  I found his treatment of Gemma too... old-fashioned?  I find it hard to believe that someone who be mentally unfit enough to kidnap someone to make them love them, and someone who is physically capable of, erm, "relations", would be okay being friends.  Saying that, I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if Christopher had written the story the way I thought it would go. I also like the butterfly on the cover, a bit of a nod to The Collector by John Fowles.


 Stolen by Lucy Christopher gets a Midnight Book Rating of: