Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Wendy is determined to find her younger brothers, John and Michael, twins who are presumed dead when their surfboards wash up after a giant wave they tried to surf. But Wendy refuses to believe they are dead and her search brings to a private beach called Kensington and a group of surfers lead by the charismatic Pete. Here is where Wendy thinks she will find her brothers' trail but here is where she falls into between a rivalry between Pete and the fairy dust drug dealer Jas.

It might sound strange given that I requested to read this but I wasn't sure I was going to like it. Surfing is not a sport I've ever been interested in but I liked the idea of a retold Peter Pan with Wendy as the focus.  It turns out there's not a lot of that here. Yes, the names are the same and the locations have familiar names as well  but this story is not one that needed to be tied down to the Peter Pan legacy. It was good all on its own. It turns out that I did like it and a lot. Wendy is a confused and sad girl looking for her brothers and she doesn't know what to make of Pete and Jas and all the lost surfer kids who live with them. It was interesting to see the dynamic shift of Peter and Hook to Pete and Jas, two guys who use to be friends before a falling out and Wendy caught  between them. Yes, there's a love triangle but only sort of. Everything is only sort of in this book and it's the nature of the telling, the dream-like quality of Wendy's time on Kensington, that does it. I'm probably only 98% sold on the ending but only because I like a concrete ending. Still it was appropriate.


from NetGalley 
Publish date: May 13, 2014
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)