Review: Stolen

Title: Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher 
Published: 2009
Pages: 301
My Rating: 4.5/5

It happened like this.
I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him. This is my story. 
A letter from nowhere.


Stolen was one of those books that isn't so much about the story it takes you on, but more of the emotional journey it takes you on. And it certainly messed with my emotions alright.

Our main character, Gemma, tells the story in first person to her captor, Ty, in the form of a letter. The whole story revolves round these two characters, in pretty much the same setting. I was skeptical when I first started reading as to what could keep this book going with only two characters and one setting. But Christopher not only makes it work; she makes it work brilliantly.

This book is incredibly intimate. I kind of feel as though I've stumbled into two peoples lives and I couldn't feel closer to them if I was a fly on the wall. I, as the reader, feel as though I was Gemma. As though I was the one being kidnapped. I feel like I lived what happened with her. Through her. I felt the same strain on my emotions as Gemma was feeling them.

On the one hand I knew I should have hated Ty, and from the beginning I couldn't imagine myself liking him after what he did. Very much like Gemma was thinking. But in the end, even though I still couldn't really like him or condone what he did as right, I couldn't help loving him in some sense, even though it was completely wrong.

This has been an extremely gushy review, and I apologize for that as I literally just finished it. I can't really review this book like others that I've read, as you need to read it to understand it. There's not much else to say but I'd recommend it to anyone.