Melissa Jane Osborne

What attracted me originally to this graphic novel was the beautiful cover. I was walking down the aisle at a book conference and the colors just grabbed me. Throughout the book Veronica Fish uses color--bright vivid color such as you see on the cover--sparingly to illustrate the "real world" (in monochromatic grays, blacks and white) versus the world that when Wendy needs to escape from her grief. Its telling that when the story shifts to Neverland (later on) its a complete explosion of colors and when we come back to the real world those colors slowly introduce themselves into the comic as Wendy learns to accept her choices.

I felt for Wendy and I wondered how much was truly happening and how much was her need for closure. Sometimes, especially when grief is strong and the world seems so...hostile, its easy to believe something so fantastical is preferable. And the guilt she carried...

I've never made secret my intense dislike of Peter Pan. Finding out Barrie meant him to be the actual villain of the book originally made my day because he's always, always, come off that way to me (in the actual book, many versions of him paint him less creepy/malevolent and more careless/oblivious/selfish). Here...he's not the problem. Not really. Oh he's not helpful, but he does make several good points to Wendy that she doesn't want to believe and he does help her in the end.

This story is very much a handbook of what happens when you become so wrapped up in something it isolates you. Several times throughout Wendy neglects to think of the consequences of her actions in an effort to prove her belief right. She pushes people away and behaves self destructively. When she does realize how her actions have maybe not been the best for her brother John, she attempts to pull away...only to give in and go deeper.

At times the book was confusing - it never really answers whether this is all a delusion to comfort herself or if it really happens. There's some high school drama that gets in the way a little and her parents come off not very sympathetic for most of the book. As we see things from Wendy's point of view, their actions come off cold and abrupt, with little nuance into their own feelings until nearer the end when Wendy starts to recognize how much she's ignored.

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Beautifully rendered retelling of Peter Pan. Wendy crashes the car she is driving with her brothers as passengers, when Michael isn't found she is convinced she saw him fly away. Her therapist insists she keep a journal to draw her feelings. Since the worst has already happened, according to the therapist, what's the worst that could happen?

The drawings are black and white with color accents, until we are in Neverland, then they are full color. The book binding and shape is in the style of the journal Wendy is writing in--loved that.… (más)

This book is good but suffers from being the book I read immediately after Patrick Ness' more powerful [book:A Monster Calls|8621462]. They are very similar in themes and structure, with fantasy elements being injected in a fuzzy way to help the main character cope with grief over the loss of a loved one. Peter Pan serves here in place of the large tree monster. Regardless, I like the way Osborne tweaks the Neverland mythos. I could have done without the circular old cliche of the book itself being the one a character in the book is creating throughout the story, but that's a small gripe.

Mostly, this reminds me that I have been eyeing an annotated edition of Peter Pan in my library for a while now, and I should just go ahead and read it so I finally get to know know the source of the hundreds of derivative works I have read in my lifetime. Peter and Wendy have to be up there with Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dorothy and Alice as the most referenced fictional characters of all time.… (más)