Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Gemma Toombs is a sixteen year old with wealthy parents who like the travel. While in Bangkok airport, Gemma meets Ty who at first glance seems oddly familiar. Ty kidnaps Gemma and takes her to the middle of nowhere in one of Australia’s deserts. Gemma launches multiple escape attempts, but she can’t ever seem to escape Ty and his desert home.
I think what most surprised me about this book was how much I actually enjoyed it. I picked up this book a couple years ago from my local library and read some of it. I never finished it from boredom and not enough time. However, this time I read it, I actually got quite attached to the main character and the plot. It moved slowly, but it was relaxing. I liked how we got to explore all the desert could offer through Gemma and Ty’s interaction.
My favorite character was definitely the camel. For a camel, it had a lot of personality. I also enjoyed how Gemma was able to project her situation onto the camel, it makes zoos seem a little more sinister if you think about all the animals being “stolen” from the wild. Gemma wasn’t the heroine I had been hoping for, but I think that’s because I’ve been spoiled by other kickass heroines in YA. I admired her spirit and that she always kept trying to find her way home. I think part of the reason I put this book down the first time was that I thought she would give up. While Gemma does give in to fits of depression and hopelessness, she stills tries to plan escaping. However, her escapes aren’t very well thought out. This irked me, especially the second time she escaped; you’d think she would have learned that you need to be prepared to escape the desert, you can’t just run into it and hope.
I think part of the reason I felt annoyed by Gemma was that she was still a little immature. She is only sixteen and for the most part, she acts like it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not the mindset I like reading. One thing I would like to see is how Gemma is going to acclimate to the “real world”. Is she still going to be friends with Anna and Ben? Or will she always crave the escape of the desert she was forced into? The open ending leaves much to the imagination.
One of the quotes that stuck with me was “It’s funny, but I always thought I could trust blue eyes. I thought they were safe somehow. All the good guys have baby blues. The dark eyes are for the villains… the Grim Reaper, the Joker, Zombies. All dark.” This was funny to me, because I’ve read plenty of stories where a villain has blue eyes or a hero has brown eyes. It was just such a ridiculous notion that good character could be based on eye color that I laughed. I think this quote really shows how immature and naïve Gemma can be, but also she didn’t know any better.
Ty and Gemma’s relationship was very complicated and there were two quotes that I thought really captured it and explain it well. The first is “It sounded weird to hear you talk so much; normally you only said a few words at a time. I’d never imagined that you’d have a story, too. Until that moment, you were just the kidnapper. You didn’t have reasons for anything. You were stupid and evil and mentally ill. That was all. When you started talking, you started changing.” I liked this quote because it really shows how Gemma’s perception of Ty begins to slowly change as he reveals pieces of his story to her. I think this is the point where Gemma begins to let him in. She listens and makes different conclusions than he’s just plain evil. This is also the point I think where the author begins showing that Ty did have reasons for what he did (however wrong and convoluted they were) and that he thinks he made the right and logical choice by taking Gemma.
The last quote that really stuck with me was “Let’s face it, you did steal me. But you saved my life too. And somewhere in the middle, you showed me a place so different and beautiful, I can never get it out of my mind. And I can’t get you out of there either. You’re stuck in my brain like my own blood vessels.” After having to depend on Ty to keep her safe and then actually save her life when she was bit by the death adder, Gemma and Ty have had their fair share of traumatic experiences together. I think this quote really shows how twisted Gemma’s emotions have gotten and even though she knows what Ty did was wrong, she can’t help being grateful at the same time. This book screwed with my emotions, because while I could never shake the creepy factor Ty exuded, at one point I found myself wanting Gemma and Ty to be together. They just seemed to work. Which was many shades of wrong and crazy. And now I’m here wondering if maybe they could’ve worked out had they met under normal circumstances. In the end, I understood Ty and why he did what he did, but it was still so wrong. You can’t just take someone, even if it’s for their own good.
I see no reason why this book couldn’t be used in a lit circle. A blanket permission slip seems like a good idea for all the books, but I firmly believe that people should be able to read what they want, no matter what. I think high schoolers or middle schoolers could read this book, but I wouldn’t force them to read it. They’d have to decide for themselves if they wanted to read this and if they could handle the content. Other books that are similar to this that I would include in a lit circle are Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas, Easy by Tammara Webber, The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney and You Against Me by Jenny Downham. I think it would be a good idea to have a rationale for each of these books including Stolen just in case there are worried parents or staff.