Unshelved Book Review - It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo

 My review of Cynthia Pelayo's It Came from Neverland was posted on LibraryJournal.com. 

You can find the review here. My other reviews for Library Journal are available on their site. 

I gave It Came from Neverland a well-deserved star. 

My Goodreads version of the review is below.

It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Notes for pending Library Journal Review.

In WWI era London, Wendy Darling struggles to get through each day, residing in her family home and working in the orphanage where she stayed after leaving the hospital. Her parents put here there when she and her brothers returned after being reported missing for three days. The real world horrors of a war which is at its beginning hang over the novel. Kensington Gardens is the center of many missing children. Wendy was not believed and her placement in the orphanage led to her estrangement from her brothers, John and Michael.
The Darling children were told to push their visit to Neverland down and not speak of it. The idea that trauma will go away if ignored is used by Pelayo to demonstrate that this tactic will only lead to the past feeding on hope, promise, and joy. Neverland and Peter are not as they are described in the storybooks as both have a hidden side. While she survived, Wendy lives in the past and in her stories. In Pelayo’s telling, stories are a way to navigate the past and its trauma.
Hints of the past are revealed slowly using alternating timelines. This allows for the perspective of Wendy from her childhood as well as her two brothers to be included. The tension and fear rise slowly in the novel and readers will be compelled to read further even as every shadow and noise in the dark becomes more menacing.

Wendy begins to see signs that Peter is returning and that the children of the orphanage are in danger. She and her brothers reunite to attempt to rescue a girl who has gone missing, like so many before her. However, they may not be strong enough to face their fears and trauma which lay hidden and unexplored for so long.

Beautifully written, terrifying, and filled with horrors both fairytale and real.

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