***The Starry-Eyed Revue***: alyssa b. sheinmel

Title: Second Star
Author: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Series: n/a
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Publication Date: May 13, 2014
Source: from publisher via Netgalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

I love a good fairy-tale retelling as much as the next girl, but still I go into each one with some amount of trepidation. What if the author butchers one of my favorite characters from my childhood? What if the story is too close to the original to stand on its own? What if the story is so vastly different from the original story that it doesn't feel like a retelling at all? These questions and many others are what I find myself pondering before picking up any book based on a beloved story from my childhood.

Second Star is a Peter Pan retelling. But most of the time, I forgot that fact while I was reading. The most obvious aspect making this a retelling is the fact that neither of the boys that Wendy meets -- while in her search for her lost brothers -- wants to grow up. Pete (Peter, obvs) is the sweet and caring leader of a group of surfers, squatting in a house on the cliffs of the California coast. Jas (Hook) is the mysterious drug-dealing counterpart to Pete's rag-tag gang of surfers. Oh, and Belle (Tinkerbell, again, obvs) is there to keep Wendy from falling for Pete. (Or, rather, to keep Wendy and Pete from getting together because I don't think there's really a possibility of keeping Wendy from falling for Pete.) So, as far as characters go, it sounds pretty similar, right?

No...not really. When it says a "radical reinvention" up there in the summary, it means it. "Neverland" is a beach cove. The Jolly Roger is a seedy bar. Fairy dust is the drug Jas is peddling to his fellow surfers. Jas/Hook actually might not be the villain we've been led to believe. And Wendy's brothers, surfers themselves, may be gone for good.

I liked the idea of Pan and Hook vying for the affections of Wendy Darling. And I should have known that I'd fall for the not-so-evil Hook myself. I always fall for the guy I'm not supposed to like. Such is life, though the fact that Jas might have been the only one interested in helping Wendy find her lost brothers might have something to do with that. But never did I dare to dream that Wendy might actually waver between the two surfers herself. The thing is, though...this Wendy's not the Wendy from the original story either. She's grieving the loss of her brothers. She's making rash decisions, leading to one mistake after another. This Wendy is not the responsible mothering type. Except that this instinct does seem to kick in for her at times, like when she grilled dinner for all the Lost Boys.

There were hints of the original story, as different as this retelling was, and it was enough for me to enjoy the story overall. I wish I could say that I didn't see that ending coming, but I did...no matter how much I was hoping for a different outcome. It's one of those ambiguous, WTF did I just read kind of endings, and honestly, it left me more than a little disappointed. I probably would have rated the book higher if not for that because I was really having fun with the story up to that point, confusing as it was.

GIF it to me straight:

Confusing, wondrous & frustrating.
Felt like I was flying in circles myself for much of the book.

About the author:

I was born in Stanford, California, and even though I moved across the country to New York when I was six years old, I still think of myself as a California girl.

Like so many writers, I grew up loving books. I loved stories so much that when there was nothing to read, I wrote my own stories just to give myself something to read. And when there was no pen and paper to be had, I made up stories and acted them out by myself. I played all the parts, and I was never bored.

Find Alyssa:

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