Book Review: Stolen

A letter to my captor…

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.

Stolen by Lucy Christopher was given to me by a wonderful friend this past Yule. I tend to read mostly fantasy, but I also enjoy contemporary. And while I was feeling burnt out on fantasy, needing a contemporary, I grabbed this one from the shelf. And wow…

I must admit I didn’t read the synopsis until I was pulling this review together. I’d seen the book in stores. I’d added it to my “to-read” on Goodreads. (You should too.) But all I had read was the title, Stolen: A letter to my captor and the author’s name. That was enough to interest me.

While this story was written as a letter from Gemma to Ty, the man who kidnapped her, it was almost more like a journal with multiple entries. It was written in first person. The fact that she referred to Ty as “you” was the only indication that it was a letter. I was very conflicted about how I felt about both Ty and Gemma. I figured this guy in his early twenties who kidnapped a 16-year-old girl would very clearly be the villain, the bad guy, completely reprehensible. I also figured I’d be on Gemma’s side the whole time, waiting and wishing for her rescue. But it didn’t turn out that way. The writing influenced me to feel how Gemma was feeling. Ty was strong, handsome, and interesting. And Gemma annoyed me on several occasions.

I finished this book a while ago, and it’s been on my mind a lot since. I was a psych major in college, and I think that added an extra level of interest for me. But the fact that a day can’t go by without me thinking about this book is proof of how great it was. It definitely makes you think.

I always add a picture or two of the book covers in my review, but I felt the need to share several extra covers for this book. A few of them do a really good job of showing just how powerful this book is, so I decided to show them here.