Stolen: A Letter To My Captor - Lucy Christopher

Stolen: A Letter To My Captor by Lucy Christopher
Date Released: May 1st 2010
Publisher: Chicken House
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 304 pages 
Date Read: April 23, 2013
Source: Borders - R.I.P.

Summary:
It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him.

This is my story.

A letter from nowhere.

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.

From Goodreads

My Review:

It’s hard to review a book like this one. Stolen would be categorized as a contemporary book. In this genre we can find ‘dark’ as well as ‘lighter’ contemporary novels, I do not think this one falls into neither. This is unlike anything I have ever read before, a book so close to reality but at the same time far from it.

It’s been more than a month since I read this one, and my mind still fails to form coherent thought when thinking about it, which is why I think this review will be very short. From the summary we know that Gemma is kidnapped by Ty, a guy/men who is clearly obsessed with her. You may think “scary and creepy” I did too, but as the story goes there’s just so so so much more than that. First, the writing style just sucks you in, and it almost feels like being inside a dream. There’s Gema, who acted accordingly to her situations, who was scared and who also craved a connection. And there’s Ty, a very damaged, tortured and honestly cray-cray person – and I felt sympathy for him, I wanted him to be happy.

That’s the charm of the book, you feel exactly what Gemma feels. Her fear, her uncertainty, her sympathy, her everything. The ending of this novel has to be the most honest ending I have read so far. I know honest is a weird word to describe an ending but that is the first word that comes to mind.

If you have read this book or you plan on reading it, I highly suggest listening to Bastille’s Sleepsong and to Florence and the Machine’s Over the Love (even though Florence’s song was written for the Great Gatsby, it honestly first this one perfectly). A flawless piece that I would recommend to anyone that enjoys contemporary novels. Highly recommend.