Review: Second Star by Alyssa Sheinmel

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. (Goodreads)

This book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love fairy tale adaptations, and although in the original cartoon (and the Disney live action movie) I've never been a fan of Wendy. As a child I could never understand why she wold want to leave Neverland just so she could go home, grow up, and live some boring dull life. Because I'm such a fan of Peter Pan I always read adaptations of the story. I've read the original, Forever Neverland, Tiger Lily, and now I've read Second Star and it didn't disappoint me.

In this version John and Michael are twin boys who love to surf. They disappeared nine months before the beginning of the book, and were later pronounced dead when their surfboards surfaced completely damaged right after two unknown boys disappeared while surfing a wave. Wendy decides that it's possible her brother may be alive and begins to search for them, She stumbles across Pete, Belle, and their friends living in an abandoned house on the beach. Then we insert Jas (AKA Hook) the drug dealing, surfer bum, ex-friend of Pete's.

Throughout the story Wendy switches between finding clues to locate her brothers as well as her feeling for Pete and Jas. In a way this story follows along with the original Peter Pan tale, facing reality and living life.

However, at the end of Peter Pan, although I was mad at Wendy for ruining all of the fun, I was satisfied. The story was over. In this book, I was torn, I was with Wendy, convinced that it had all been an illusion (in the same way the parents in the original book were), but by the time she was leaving for school, I didn't know what to think.

Fantastic story.
*Publication date May 13, 2014*