Reviews with content warning for Forced institutionalization - Uncino

I was so excited to read this book. I literally thought of nothing else, and when I saw that it was on Kindle Unlimited, I was over the moon! I couldn’t believe my luck. Let’s just say, I heard a lot of things about this book, and yet I still was not expecting what I read.

This novel is based off Peter Pan, in that instead of falling in love with the hero, the protagonist falls in love with a villain.

We follow Wendy throughout her life. Her friend, Angie, wants her to go out with her and Maria. Now, Maria has never really liked Wendy, so she doesn’t want to go, but after a snideful comment from her, she decides she will show her that Maria doesn’t get her down, and goes out with them.

They travel to the Jolly Roger, where they talk about this mysterious guy - named ‘Hook’ who owns the bar… Marie has a crush on him, and often waits for him to arrive.

Maria bumps into someone called James, and he flirts with her, and he won’t take no for an answer. He finds her at her coffee shop, where she works, and then finds her at the Jolly Roger again. From the look on Maria’s face, she knows that James is actually Hook, and he gets them free drinks and she agrees to go on a date with him. He’s an attractive man, and she’s excited, but little does she know that he is uninterested in her, and he is using her to get back at her father.

Peter Michaels is a very well-known business, and one that’s very powerful too. James - Hook - was on one of his flights - NevAirLand - and everyone passed but him. He has no family, and has spent his life seeking revenge. And he decides to use his daughter to get at him.

Little does he know, however, that Wendy is sick of her father putting everyone else before them. She enrols Jon, her brother, into boarding school, taking away one of the people she’s closest to. He’s never given Jon the love he deserves, and since he’s never around, Wendy harbours a little resentment for him.

James takes her on a date, and he ends up taking her virginity. When he finds his business partner and father-figure tied up to a tree, brutally gutted, he thinks it must be Wendy’s fault. He thinks that she is in cahoots with her father, and so he threatens her, and puts her in a cell.

He parades her about after kidnapping her like a dog on a leash and he shows her off to her father, who tries to warn Wendy against him. As he spots the rivalry between the two, James realises that Wendy had nothing to do with it, and whilst he’s falling for her, he’s terrified that she will never forgive him for what he’s done to her. Eventually she does forgive him, and he lets her free, and they both decide to pursue things romantically.

Wendy is called to their house after Jon is back home, her father saying he has something important to tell them. When she gets there, though, she knows it’s a trap. Tina, her father’s assistant and ‘little bitch’, attacks her, and then she gets knocked out. Before too late, James realises that he has been betrayed by one of his own. Moira, whom he used to use for his, ahem, desires, thought he treated everyone like shit, and she was working with someone called Croc. She tells him that Croc has Wendy, and he goes to find her.

He finds her tied to a chair, and he finds out that Smee, his first mate and also the person who he brought in from the streets when he was a child, is the one behind it. They are cousins! His father - James’s Uncle - was abusive, and James killed him. In front of Smee, apparently, and he’s all been seeking revenge. Peter Michaels shoots Smee, although they very quickly find out that he would have sacrificed Wendy to keep himself okay.

Turns out, Jon wasn’t Peter’s, and that’s why he had James’s family killed. James and Jon are half brothers, as they share the same dad. Wendy manages to kill her father and Tina, before moving on to have a family with James.

So this book wasn’t actually the greatest book I’d ever read, unfortunately. It was the sheer amount of sex and, essentially, pornographic visuals that were created. I can’t stand books where the relationships are built solely off of lust, control and extreme stupidity, and it feels like this book defined exactly that. I’m all for a bit of rough and tumble, but this was excessive, and it was pages and pages and pages, and it contributed nothing to the plot. And if James mentioned his boner one more time, I was going to scream; there are other personality traits to have other than being horny! And Wendy, darling, what are you doing? This man held you captive, held a knife to your throat? I can get behind a little rough stuff, but there’s rough stuff and then there’s attempted murder. Come on, babe, you’re better than that. In this regard, I feel like Wendy is no better than every other Disney princess who expects someone to come and save them. Although maybe McIntire was going for that vibe, replicating Wendy just how she was in the movie/book, and if that’s the case, it’s very clever, and I hold my hat up to her (my pirate hat, ooh-argh).

The ending was a bit too cutsie-pie for me, also. Everything tied up in a neat bow, and I hate it when that happens - it’s just so unrealistic! All of a sudden Maria is nice to Wendy, Angie gives her her job backhand she starts dating James - and all is forgiven! This guy tried to kill you! Why are you so easily accepting of this life and the crime that comes with it? If someone came up to me, admitted to not only Killy people, but torturing them as well, I don’t think the door will even have started to close by the time I ran out. Wendy Michaels just seems really, sincerely stupid, and I wasn’t a fan of any of the characters. The only mildly good character is Jon, and we don’t hear about him at all for the most of it. Maria and Angie are proper bitchy, giving off mean girl vibes, and James is just insane and sexually driven - it’s mad!

I did predict that Smee was somehow involved, but Moira got me, I’ll admit. Especially with the new tattoo bit, I thought that was insanely clever. And with the names as well, like the Jolly Roger and, especially, NevAirLand… I thought that was brilliant. See the thing is I get it was supposed to be a smutty book, but also if the sex scenes had been dialled down, merely hinted at, I think the book would have rated so much higher for me. If you take out the sex scenes, not much of the book remains. You could have added so much more to the plot, which was already incredible. Maybe we could have had more flashbacks, see more into James’s past, see more as to why he was like the way he was, so we could bond with him more as a character. I don’t know. I just think it had so much potential, but it was a little bit ruined by the toxicity of the relationship, unfortunately.

Content Warnings

kmwolff's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

mmvr08's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

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