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Peter and the Starcatchers

Posted: 18 Jun 2015, 13:29
by MBurt1
As an avid Peter Pan fan, I recently set out to read the first of the Peter and the Starcatchers series by Dave Berry and Ridley Peterson. I was intrigued to see how these authors would prequel the timeless legend. For the most part the ties to the original were nice. It seemed that the authors respected the original text and paid a good homage to the never-aging boy. However, I feel they oftentimes leaned too heavily on the fact that their readers would already be associated with the characters of the original and did not spend adequate time developing the characters and their relationships. They definitely had ample time to do so (the first installment is an excess of 450 pages) but I found myself unable to buy-into or connect to the characters from the text alone; I was invested because of the original. The story in and of itself was good and entertaining and the writing often displayed bits of humor that I found quite charming. Essentially, the story is told from three differing viewpoints and I feel the authors did well to connect the viewpoints into a coherent, chronological structure. I struggled a bit to find the climax and the character's real "point of no return". I know this is a series and perhaps the authors were leaving room for the next books, but come on! This is Peter Pan! Give us the adventure and the danger! Overall, I found the book to be good and one that I will probably add to my collection because it pays its respects well to the timeless tale although it was slightly predictable.