Release Date: July 3rd 2012 (US), October 3rd 2013 (UK)
Published By: HarperTeen (US), Orchard Books (UK)
Pages: 303
Goodreads: Add it to your reading list

Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis: Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn’t believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she’s ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland’s inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she’s always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it’s the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who’s everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn’t grow up.

Review: Tiger Lily tells the story of Neverland like you have read before… where good doesn’t always prevail and where love doesn’t always win. The writing is beautiful, filled with wonderful descriptions and heart-wrenching emotions. This story is about loneliness, hope, fear, loss, love, strength and heartbreak.

Tiger Lily is a strong, but lonely character. Living amongst tribe members who believe she is cursed, Tiger Lily has never been fully accepted, but yet she is fearless, smart and determined. She has come to accept her place within the tribe, taking pleasure in the smallest of things, but when she discovers a boy in the forest who shows her that she can belong, her life changes.

Tiger Lily is told from Tinkerbell’s point of view - and this is my absolute favourite thing about this book. I utterly enjoyed being in Tinkerbells head - this amazingly strong little faerie proved herself to be empathetic, endearing and filled with the same courage that she admires in Tiger Lily.

Through Tinkerbell, we are able to get to know multiple characters - Tiger Lily and Peter Pan included. I think the thing that I loved most about having this story told in Tinkerbells perspcecitve is her ability to love both Tiger Lily and Peter. She has always admired Tiger Lily, but as Tinkerbell falls in love with Peter, Peter falls in love with Tiger Lily. It was heartbreaking to watch her fall in love, and protect those she doesn’t feel can ever love her in return.

We also we got to learn a lot about “secondary” characters, such as The Lost Boys, Wendy, Tick Tock, Hook and Smee. All of these characters are complex and interesting, especially the villans of this storyline. Hook, who is a broken man who’s jealousy turns into unyielding desire to hurt Peter. And Smee, is another interesting character, who murders only those who he admires, but then mourns their deaths. Tick Tock was another extremely interesting character - I admired his strength, and I felt for him during his hardest of times (and where I felt that Tiger Lily really let him down).

All of the characters in Tiger Lily have strengths and weaknesses - and sometimes it is those weaknesses that lead to disastrous decisions, or inability to see what is happening around them.

The relationship between Tiger Lily and Peter Pan is so sweet. As Peter shows Tiger Lily that life is filled with adventures, promise and possibilities, an unlikely friendship develops into a love that cannot be forgotten. The interactions between these two damaged characters were so charming and honest.

Tiger Lily is a poignant story of first love, heartbreak and courage. The writing is beautiful, and the characters are interesting. It is an interesting twist of the fairytale - it is Tiger Lily’s (and really Tinkerbells) story, so the adventures of The Lost Boys is not a focus of the story - but if you want a wonderfully written re-telling, filled with emotion, strength, weakness, and true-love then this if for you. Tiger Lily is bittersweet - it shows what love truly means: it is both sad and beautiful.

Quotes:

“Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you’ve heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn’t win.”

“Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we’re only what we’ve done and what we are going to do.”

“She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.”

“You have to be careful who you meet. You can’t unmeet them.”

“I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter’s, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily.”

“Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn’t that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me.”