Stolen ~ Lucy Christopher review

Stolen
Chicken House
May 4, 2009 (UK)/May 1, 2010 (US)
320 Pages(UK)/304 Pages (US)
Buy @ Amazon UK or US

Gemma is taken during a moment alone in the Bangkok airport while on a trip with her parents. They were on their way to Vietnam from their home in England when she stepped away for just a moment to get a cup of coffee and suddenly a young man was there across from her. A weirdly familiar, too old to be a fried, man who knew her name. A young man named Ty who had this all planned.

Ty offers to pay for her drink. Ty drugs her drink and soon has taken Gemma far away to a remote, harsh part of the world where it is just the two of them.

Stolen is Gem's letter to her captor. Her "letter from nowhere."

Because Stolen is Gemma's letter to her kidnapper, it tells the story of her kidnapping and imprisonment from her perspective, but also uses an interesting pronoun. As it's to him and not about him it uses 'you' and not 'he' or his name making the reading very, very interesting. At times it's like the reader is the 'you' in the book, the kidnapper that Gemma is talking to--definitely making for an intriguing go of things. Other times it's as if you're the 'I,' Gem who's been taken and telling her tale.



A slightly paraphrased quote from page 262 in the British version explains it, "I was you...But I was me....too. I was us both."

Pairing that with the story of these two characters and the unique situation they find themselves in and it's one of the most innovative stories I've read.

The interaction between Ty (or usually 'you') and Gem rings so true because the reasoning is there--illogical or crazy as it may be--the same way that it is when you hear about someone being abducted in real life. The back story was well built for both of the characters, the relationship between them made sense (given the story), and the setting really fit--and it all came together to make a fantastic novel.



9/10