Stolen

Stolen by Lucy Christopher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a beautiful book. I absolutely loved it.

In Stolen, 16-year old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to Australia.

This book isn't good because it has lots of action or so many plot twist you never saw coming. It has neither of those things. It's so good because it's a book I feel.

The story takes form of a letter written by Gemma to Ty. I didn't expect to love her, but she just creeps up on you and before you know it, you feel for her. You feel like you know her. Gemma isn't a kick-ass, look-I've-got-a-sword-and-can-fight-with-it herione, but she also isn't a whiny, save-me-and-let-me-love-you girl. She's a real teenage girl. Her feelings are real. Her thoughts are real. Her actions are real.

Then there's Ty. Oh, Ty. In the beginning of the book, I did not like him. He kidnapped Gemma, after all. That's not exactly admirable. But he isn't an evil kidnapper, not really. He's lonely, he loves Gemma, he's broken. And he grows on you. You won't like him in the beginning, but silently he grows on you, and when you realise you love him it's already too late. You can't go back. And I did love him. Just like Gemma, he's real, so real.

The writing is absolutely gorgeous. It's not gorgeous in a Laini Taylor kind of way, or a Lauren DeStefano kind of way. It's beautiful because it's honest. It makes the book all the more real.

As a reader, I'm not really emotional. Something really big has to happen for me to even raise my eyebrow, let alone to make me really feel for a book. I felt for the Unearthly series. I felt for the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. But I really felt for this.

The biggest pro of the book is just the realness and honesty of it, the way it carefully tears you apart, the way I couldn't help but love it in the end.

If you want a book with a lot of action: this isn't it. But the dynamics of Gemma and Ty's 'relationship', the writing, the landscape (Australia!), everything, it just made me keep reading.