Title: Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher
Publisher: Chicken House LTD
Publication: May 4th 2009
Cover Rating: 2/5
I've never read a book that involved kidnapping and from the victims perspective so I chose Stolen since it had a good reputation and a lot of reviews saying it gave them weird feelings.
The novel has a dark plot and story base yet it lacked depth specially when it comes to the main and ONLY two characters in the Novel . Ty, the kidnapper, and Gemma, the victim.
Ty was "normal" to me when it comes to what he has been through (his mother leaving him , father forgetting about him in the dessert and Ty surviving on his own , him ending up in London alone being on drugs and alcohol and many more that I don't want to spoil) except when he tracked Gemma for 6 years and built a place in the middle of the dessert for them to live forever which is obsessive . He was actually interacting nicely to his environment an Gemma, he even let her run away! TWICE! With all the unfortunate events he has been through, Ty's character should develop to become twisted , dark , intense and even weird but there is nothing like that in Stolen which is disappointing.
Gemma seems lifeless to me , her personality falls flat and her background wasn't much focused on for me . The writer put so much focus on how Gemma was trying to find plans to run away or kill Ty, but that took more space than it should have.
I wanted the characters to collide, fight and have more intense moments together and let their relationship evolve but nothing happened . Their conversations weren't rich, they were more like "exchange of information" or Ty telling a story rather than a real 2-person conversation, Gemma's part was short and more of her thinking of a way out . Gemma was not listening to Ty in the whole novel, she was just simply hearing it.
The setting of the novel being in the middle of a desert made me feel in the middle of nowhere! I felt it! It gave the feeling of being hopeless and isolated from the whole world where you have no place to run to but Ty. The description was beautiful and spot on! The heat of the endless desert, the stars and the patterns it formed made me develop a hate/love feeling towards it. Just like how Gemma felt.
I wasn't a fan of the ending. When it finally got to the point of their interaction, it all ended up so fast . No goodbyes or anything. Just the confusion of Gemma having to go back to reality.
Stockholm syndrome was a nice touch that gave me the urge to search about it and wonder if Gemma actually suffered from it but she is convinced that she doesn't.
Gemma ended up not adapting back to her old life and was confused about her feelings toward the life she had with Ty in the middle of the desert, which was a realistic type of confusion and post-traumatic feelings.
The book wasn't bad , but it wasn't as dark as it should have been in order to go with the intense atmosphere and would have been better if some complexity and intensity was added to Ty. It was like a beautiful portrait that lacks shading!
Overall, I gave the book 3/5 stars.
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