Stolen by Lucy Christopher

ebook, 177 pages

Published February 1st 2011 by Scholastic, Inc. (first published May 4th 2009)

ISBN:0545361117 (ISBN13: 9780545361118)

A Letter to my Captor

 

Rating: 4 Stars

 

Summary: Gemma, 16, is on layover at Bangkok Airport, en route with her parents to a vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second, to get a cup of coffee. Ty - rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar - pays for Gemma's drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. Steals her away. The unknowing object of a long obsession, Gemma has been kidnapped by her stalker and brought to the desolate Australian Outback.

Stolen is her gripping story of survival, of how she has to come to terms with her living nightmare - or die trying to fight it.   

 

Written as a letter from a victim to her captor,  this is Gemma's desperate story of survival. Ty has Stolen her body. Against everything screaming inside of her, he also steals Gemma's heart. 

 

 

This was totally not what I was expecting. At all. Gemma was stolen by Ty, a man who has watched her for years and somehow, thinks he is saving her. Gemma lives a shadow of a life: she haunts her way through her days until the day she is stolen. All the while of living the life of a captor, she's treated like diamonds. Ty obviously adores her and wants her to be happy. With him. Only him. She feels trapped in the middle of the desert where there is no other living person for hundreds of miles.
Ty's created his own paradise in the middle of no where. He expects Gemma to love him, to thank him for taking away from all she's ever known. When she doesn't he's confused and doesn't know what to do. He tries to make her want to stay.

“And it's hard to hate someone once you understand them.” 

Through all of this, Gemma finds herself falling for her captor.
Then, something goes horribly wrong.....

This whole book did something to my mind. Ty really thinks he's doing what's best for Gemma- the girl he's watched since she was ten. The book shocked me, to be honest. It was a beautiful kind of scary. Gemma's voice was vivid in the letter she's writing to Ty. Her emotions are raw, real and untouched.

“Lets face it, you did steal me. But you saved my life too. And somewhere in the middle, you showed me a place so different and beautiful, I can never get it out of my mind. And I can't get you out of there either. "

The way the book way laid out made it so real. The book was gripping until the end. The finale was not what I expected at all. It had closure and a finish, but it was like everybody was giving up. I dunno. Is that what happens? All the air is sucked out and the life force is near zero? People are living in shells?

The book wasn't perfect. The story wasn't perfect. I'm glad it wasn't perfect or Gemma's story would have never felt that real.

 

-Jackie