![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stolen - Lucy Christopher
Jan. 5th, 2013 23:01
Title: Stolen: A Letter to My CaptorAuthor: Lucy Christopher
Genre: Fiction, Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 362
Date read: January, 2013
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.
It's wrong to say that I "really liked" this book (which is the translation for 4 stars on goodreads), because I'm not entirely sure this is a book you like, but I couldn't put it down - that's for sure. The book is very emotionally draining, and I felt almost exhausted - again, emotionally - upon finishing it. It's so powerful and so captivating (no pun intended) that I think I will suffer from a slight book-hangover the next few days.
In many ways it reminded me of 3,096 Days by Natascha Kampusch and Room by Emma Donoghue - even though one is non-fiction and the other fiction. The emotion it leaves behind is the same.
At some point near the end, I really couldn't see how it could end in any satisfactory manner, and feared the worst. But Lucy Christopher managed beautifully, and though I would have liked for it to continue a while longer, it really couldn't have ended in any other way.
It did make me long for the Australian outback though - and I think that's in part what the author intended.
Most thought-provoking and troubling book I've read all year... although not troubling in a bad way, even though I know that makes no sense.
