Review: Stolen

"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."
-Good Reads




Stats:

• Publisher: Chicken House Ltd.
• Release date: May 4, 2009
• Page count: 299
• Unique elements: Written in the form of a letter, no chapters
• Would appeal to: Anyone interested in psychology, fans of The Lovely Bones

Favorite Quotes:

"[The stars] were like a hundred thousand tiny candles, sending out hope. Watching them made me think that everything might be OK."

"You held your injured hands out in front of you like a small child might. Blood wept from the gash over your knuckles and ran over your wrist...Then you looked up, really turned those big blue eyes on me."

"London chattered like a monkey at night. The desert, on the other hand, slitered around me like a snake. Soft and silent and deadly...and quiet enough to keep my eyes wide open, always."

"But the pale sun was on your skin, making it glow. The light made everything glow that morning. It seeped into the landscape and made the sand sparkle like popping candy."

What can I say about this? WOW.

Lucy Christopher wrote this book as part of her doctoral program. I hated when I had to leave for school and put it down. The writing style is urgent, tense, since it's a letter from Gemma to her kidnapper. It's silly how fast Gemma falls for the older man in the airport, but I could see it happening in real life. And when you're taken from Bangkok, who would look for you in Australia?

What's more alarming is when Gemma finds out this man has been watching her for years, planning the day he would steal her away. It's just her and him in the desert. And a camel they catch. The car is a stick shift (which means I'd never be able to escape). But with all the supplies and the structures he built out of wood (a house and some outbuildings), it seems he thought of everything they'd ever need.

Can you really force someone to love you?

Gemma discovers Ty is a lot more than he first seems...he has a broken past. He tells magical stories. He seems as honest as a kidnapper ever could be. And he has really blue eyes.

Descriptions in this book get an A+.