Stolen is about Gemma, a sixteen year old girl from London. When she is getting a drink from a café in an airport in Bangkok, she meets Ty. As charming as he seems to her, it's not long before she is kidnapped and in the outback in Australia, far from any civilisation and living very closely with her captor. Love and hatred are initially competing with each other. Ty built his life for a whole six years for Gemma. Gemma is now terrified and disgusted with the guy who swears she'll love living here... for the rest of her life.
This book is amazing for, I guess, unsettling reasons. I've never read a book that's left me so on edge. I don't believe that's the only reason I am in love with this book, though. It's an interesting plot and not one I've read anything close to before. I felt intense for a lot of the first half but I became more relaxed but my disgust for Ty never wavered. The aspect of the wild is quite central to this novel but it made me feel quite uneasy. Firstly it all, of course, was very dangerous. The intense heat, the wild animals, the spiders... Ty. It was, however, so interesting to read about. As the book is formed as a letter from Gemma to Ty, we learn a lot about her character's development throughout the novel and it is awesome to be so closely tied to her thoughts. I think this makes us all the more uneasy though because we see everything first hand. Even though it is written in hindsight, her honesty never seems anything but genuine and it makes for a very gripping novel.
As for Gemma, I adore her. She's a strong female character who never loses sight of how wrong the situation is and although she is careful with what she says to Ty, I loved reading her thoughts about the situation and I loved her ambition to break free. Ty, on the other hand, is not my favourite. I think a reader's thoughts toward Ty are likely to change from person to person and no one's thoughts about him will make the book any less fantastic. I find him nothing but repulsive. Of course I empathise with his back story, but I just was shouting that he needs help and yeah, he needed it six years before and he should have got it then, but dude, admit you're in the wrong, serve your time, and get that help too! I can't find it in me to like him even if we see through Gemma's eyes that he has admirable qualities and even that he really does love Gemma... He's still very rightly the villain.
There is a twist to this novel, one that is known to most readers before but I don't want to cover it all the same. It makes the novel heart-breaking in that I ache for Gemma to be okay. I adore this novel. It made my heart race, it made my stomach turn. It really is a read for all.
I give this amazing novel - a FABULOUS start to 2016 - 5/5!
Sun & Sand,
The Girl in the Moonlight.
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