I haven't picked up anything Peter Pan inspired in a while so when I came across this one I had to check it out. The story is immersive and has a good balance of new story material with the familiarity of Neverland. All the cool elements combined - it's a pretty interesting read!

It was a lovely tale and one I would pass on to a friend and recommend to students. A quick and fun read. Thank you for the chance to enjoy it!

confession: i love retellings and reimaginings, and i say this knowing how hard it is to do one right. j.m. sullivan doesn't QUITE hit the mark on second star, but it's a worthwhile read either way! i admit to being biased in the beginning, as a space opera version of peter pan sounds completely made for me, and i went into this fully expecting to enjoy it. thankfully, it was a fun ride, even with that heavy burden of expectation! there are some delightful touches here, such as tinkerbell being depicted as a nanobot with too much personality, and wendy as the captain of her own ship is too good to ignore.

the plotline essentially follows the original peter pan stories beat for beat though, which made it easy to predict. i honestly would've like to see more creativity. furthermore, there were several things that felt shallow. for example, we are often TOLD that this peter is capricious and somewhat wicked like our original pan, but we rarely (if ever) see him acting that way. a retelling should be able to stand in its own right in my opinion, and second star could've used some more fleshing out.

i enjoyed our multiple povs, although our heroes suffer from the obligatory YA insta-love and love triangle problem, and there were a few instances were we switched from peter to wendy (and vice versa) within a few pages. it gave me whiplash at times, and once again, i think sullivan could stand to let the characters breathe more, and give us more time in their heads. this book is effectively all action, which makes it a quick read, but it left me wishing for more - not the WORST problem to have, in all fairness.

still, despite those minor issues, i breezed through book in an evening. thank you for netgalley, the author, and the publisher for loaning me a copy in exchange for a review, and for anyone who loves retellings as much as i do, this one is well worth a shot!

Second Star is an okay read. I think I'm not really a fan of Peter Pan. I just couldn't get interested enough to really enjoy this one.

Overall the story arc in this book was good, but the writing was mediocre. I liked the modern sci-fi twist to the classic Peter Pan story, but at times adherence to the original novel came across very forced. The author did a good job building up the backstory for Wendy, John, and Michael, but the backstory for Hooke, Peter and the rest of the stranded crew was thin at best. Furthermore, the author tried to add in a romance element, but there was absolutely no chemistry between the characters. Particularly <spoiler> between Wendy and Boyce, seriously WTF </spoiler>. The next book should be interesting but I'd want to see a lot of improvement in the writing before I'd pay money for it.

A brilliant retelling of Peter Pan!

I was not prepared to fall for this story as I did! Space and Peter Pan? Two of my least favorite topics and yet here I was falling head over heels in love with this retelling! Sullivan crafted a believable universe, with amazing characters who all possess a unique personality.

The overall plot was somewhat in line with the story we all know, but again Sullivan made this story her own and wove in lore that while might resemble the classic is wholly Second Star lore!

Each side character in the story has a purpose and adds rather than distracts from what is going on, and each character has faults or strengths, and speaking of strength I want to shout out the girl power in this book, too! Wendy grows by leaps and bounds in this novel which I absolutely adored, she is so strong and a perfect role model for girls!

Okay, so I'm going to try to review this as I would in my writing group since it's my first one. The premise behind this book was amazing, being a hardcore Peter Pan buff and big sci-fi nerd, I thought this would be way up my alley. The writer got a little too caught up in her own cleverness by translating Peter Pan to sci-fi and while it was cute at first, it grew wearisome by Smee. Also, immersion was completely lost for me when someone was made the captain of a ship without ever serving on a vessel before on a vastly important mission. I also didn't need to be constantly reminded of the hotness of the characters every single time they walked into a room, we get it. A little research in even the simplest of areas would have gone a long way (Bob Marley did not ever sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" that was Bobby McFerrin and that was seven years after Bob Marley died, so again, immersion breaking.) I know I'm not the demographic for this novel, but when the best lines of your retelling are coming from the original telling, it needs a second glance, I think. I hate sounding harsh for my first review, I love her idea, it's so fun, it just fell really flat for me. I forced myself to finish it because the publishers and netgalley were so kind to provide me with a copy for review, but it was really hard to finish. As an otome game? This would have been 10/10 the best otome game ever!! As a retelling? I'm going to give it 2/5 stars.

This was a nice twist on Peter Pan that still honored a lot from the traditional tale and it was fun to see them woven into a new tale, especially the clever names incorporated with the tech. Pacing with a little disjointed for me with the time-jumps, especially where it wasn't easily labeled with the chapter headings and such large gaps in the beginning that took up almost half the book left the second half feeling very rushed to fit it all in. I adored the characters and felt very connected to them. Hooke fell flat as an antagonist in wake of the Shadow and I wish he'd better earned the villainous reputation Peter Pan said he deserved, or at least had it play out more at the end rather than collapsing into general bad-guy. The whole thing with Boyce threw me and I really didn't like the angle of "he was only mean to her because he likes her" thing. It made me dislike him more and the fact that Wendy wasn't more resistant to that bothered me, she's too strong of a character to be played that way.

The kindle file contained no text. Just images for the chapter headings. I will happily read and review if the publisher and/or net galley can fix this. The epithets were there. The chapter numbers had pretty graphics. I should have selected will not give feedback but I accidentally clicked the wrong button and it wouldn't let me go back and change it.

A really clever re imagining of Peter Pan, with everything from character names to Tink and pixie dust. It all fitted together very smoothly. Of course, it ended on a massive cliffhanger, and if there was an explanation for the time dilation thing I didn't get it, but it's a good story and I'll be watching out for the next one - got to find out what happens next!


There were a few missing words here and there; not enough to make it unreadable, but more than should be in a book this close to completion.

A retelling of the story of Peter Pan with a Sci-Fi twist. The book is told from both Peter and Wendy's perspective. Its nice to be able to see the adventure from both their points of view. Peter on Neverland and Wendy still in London, working her way up to Captain.

All the same characters are there, Wendy, Michael(s), John(s), Hooke, Peter and the lost boys. Smee and Tinc are there but they are more tech heavy and really fun how the author works them into story. Its really the characters that this book is so good at, the author really seems to have grasp of Peter and Wendy, the characterization felt very true to their original stories. Even their backgrounds are grounded in the original tale. Its clear the author has done her research and is trying to tell the truest retelling that she can. I especially liked Hooke, his descent into a strange form of madness was really well done. I really liked Wendy and Peter and I wish we could have been able to get to see them together longer.

This is where my main issues with the book. The pacing feels off, there is a lot of time spent at the academy that really drags the story along. While you get to spend time at Neverland with Peter once Wendy gets there it feels very rushed. It wasn't that everything happened so fast plot wise, it just felt way too fast while the first half dragged the second half sped by. I really would have liked to see the first half at the academy be cut shorter so we could get more time with Wendy and the crew at Neverland. A little complaint was that the insult of codfish pops up, yes its true to the original story but it felt like it had no place in their sci-fi retelling.

I am hoping that we will get a sequel because after that ending, I'm going to need to have more.

I've always enjoyed fairy tale retelling and I can tell you now read quite a few and this one didn't disappoint. its a great story with a sci- fi twist would i would definitely recommend its.

would definitely recommend i love peter pan retellings and this is a really good one you wanna go in kinda blind dont need to know more than what the book descrpition says

<b> You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com </b>

Actual rating of 3.5

Second Star is a retelling of the fairy-tale Peter Pan. Set in the future, it is told from alternating points of view between Wendy and Peter. Peter is the mechanic on Captain Hooke's space ship, the Jolly Roger, when he realises that Hooke cannot be trusted and is in fact defecting from the Brigade's mission and purpose. Pan sabotages the Jolly Roger, but does so at the edge of a sector which causes them to be pulled in to an unknown planet by it's gravitational force. While Peter and the rest of the young boys onboard the Roger aim to get free from Hooke and his band of pirates, they find themselves also battling another force on this strange planet, it's native inhabitants. Fast forward 100 years, and we meet Wendy, who is a genius and has been accepted to the Academy so she can train to become a part of the Londonierre Brigade, hoping to one day, make it as a Captain. fast forward a few years, and Wendy is older now, and tasked with being part of a rescue mission out to the unknown sector, where a transmission has come through from none other than Captain Hooke. Wendy and the rest of her crew head out to bring back the crew of the Jolly Roger, though things aren't quite what they seem, secrets and lies, as well as an evil dark power abound in Neverland. Can they make it back home again?

Fairy-tale retellings, what's NOT to love about them, hey? I love seeing the different spins that author's put on them, while still keeping the core of the original story intact. I found it incredibly clever in this one as TINC is actually a nanobot that Peter has tweaked to his own specifications, TINC is actually short for Technological Interface Nano-Companion, as well as SMEE who is also robotic and Hooke's first mate, is short for Synthetic Maintenance Engineering Emissary, another piece of equipment is referred to as pix.E which is short for Personal Interface Cross-Electro Positron. I found this play on original characters and stuff from the story incredibly clever, and even got a little bit giddy when I first read it. I think that was my absolute FAVOURITE thing about this retelling. IT'S.JUST.SO.CLEVER. Other characters that we all remember are Michael who is now Michaels (last name) a tech genius, John who is now Johns (last name) and he is a brute and one of Wendy's best friend. Tiger Lily is also incorporated in a small part as the bride of the prince of the natives.

I loved the way that this fairy-tale was skyrocketed (literally) into the future, the way that Sullivan was able to incorporate all the important and most well known parts of the original into this retelling was done flawlessly and so well, and I think that's incredibly important if you are going to be retelling a well known story. You have to be able to do it justice, I believe Sullivan did. So why not a higher rating?

Well, this book, according to Goodreads, is only roughly meant to be about 350 pages, though it took me a long time to read it. I think this had a lot to do with the pacing, a lot of the time I felt like there wasn't really that much <i>happening</i> though there was. I understand that Sullivan had to set the world, characters and story up, and I feel that something would have been lost had it not been written the way it was, I just felt bored a lot of the time. The story was progressing but at a snail's pace in my eyes. Even wanting to see what happened to the characters wasn't enough to keep me glued to the pages, so this was a little disappointing for me. The last 20% of the book were action, action, action, I kinda wish that the rest of the book had this as well, I think it would've helped the pacing a lot had there been more going on.

I had no issues with the characters at all, I feel they were all written superbly. Wendy is strong, fearless and so driven, I loved it. Johns was the secondary flirty character and didn't disappoint in this role. Michaels is still the shy boy that I remember, and Pan? Pan was cocky, sure of himself, a fighter, and incredibly flirty and playful, just like Pan should be. The way that Hooke was written, as though having gone a little crazy was brilliantly done and he couldn't have been written better.

All in all, if you love a good 'ol fairy-tale retelling, give Second Star a go, you may enjoy it :)

A Peter Pan retelling in space from Wendy’s perspective? Sign me up!

This had so much promise and I was so excited to read it, yet, now that I’m done, I’m disappointed. I just felt that there should have been so much more.
The characters were my biggest struggle with this book. I liked that they were all the original Peter Pan characters with creative was to come into their names and slight quirks that were homages to the originals. Unfortunately, they mostly seemed to fall flat. I really did enjoy Wendy in the beginning. I thought she was tough, feisty, and ready to take on the world. Once she reached Neverland and met Peter, she seemed to become a helpless girl though. I was disappointing towards the end how useless she was, especially as a captain and leader. I did not like Peter’s character. I could not connect with his storyline as I felt I had already read it and wanted to get back to Wendy, Johns, and Michaels.
The plot was a pretty straight forward retelling of the classic tale with a science fiction twist. There are some added additions, but mostly we follow Peter and Wendy through the same situations they have been through before (mermaids, sword fights, poisoning).
The setting fell along the same lines. It was new, yet it was still the same. Same mysterious land with a lagoon, a skull island, a jungle, and ships. Only the ships were a little different as they were space instead of pirate. The academy for Wendy was pretty stark with details which left the reader with a normal school setting.
The ending was a bit quick, too clean, and quite impractical. It was left open for possible future installments, yet enough was finished to be the end, as the original ended.
As a whole, this wasn’t enough of something new to get me excited about. I wanted more of Wendy’s story, as that was the new part and how the book was promoted. This was a fair attempt to try a new spin, but didn’t succeed in bringing much substance to a classic story.

It took me so long to find a plot line in this book. I could not figure out what was going on. I've read Peter Pan, so I sort of understood who all the characters were, but other than that, I could not find anything in this book to talk about. I had no idea what was going on, and while I wanted so much to get into the sci-fi element of a story that I already liked, there was nothing about it that pulled me in.
First off, it took a really long time to get started. The book was just slow in the beginning. I wanted it to be faster paced, and while it seemed like things were happening, I had no idea what the world looked like, or even what the characters looked like. It felt like I was reading about people sitting in a room with nothing in it talking to each other.
The weird romance that basically consists of Peter staring at Wendy for "too long" is based off of her "galaxy eyes" which is not a color I was familiar with unless it means that her eyes are literally blue, black, and pinkish with glitter in them. By the time it's the ending and they're trying to save each other, there's been no relationship built. I don't believe that Wendy would be crying and desperate to save Peter because I've barely seem them talk. There's been no development of the relationship to show me that one really would be miserable without the other.
The ending just didn't do anything for me, and felt like a cop out, and I honestly don't know if I cared about anything that happened in this.

Second star is a retelling of a classic story we all know and love. Wendy, Peter Pan and of course Captain Hooke ! I absolutely loved this retelling, which was set in the future where Neverland is an alien planet with natives that are not happy about newcomers but who religiously follow the “Shadow” a vicious creature that takes people and uses them. When the Jolly Roger crashes on Neverland time stops, the crew only come to know they have been stranded for 100 years is another crew sent to rescue them and informs them of their time spent there.
Overall I fell in love with this book and the classic Peter Pan quotes. My favorite will always be in that place between dreaming and awake is where I will always love you!
It broke my heart the ending and I really hope for a second book to see what happens between Wendy and Peter and if we ever find Captain Hooke again ?!

*Thanks to netgalley and BleedingInk for the ARC of Second Star for an honest review*

I have been all about retellings lately and totally washed out by the same old happily ever afters of modern tales and adventures so this was a breath of fresh air! We all know and love our lost boy, Peter and the idea of never growing up on an enchanted island, but who would have thought The Shadow could be lurking on a distant planet where only extraordinary space captains dare to venture.

Sullivan was able to capture the beauty of our favorite adventure and twist it into a rocket ship soaring through space. With twists and turns around every corner, readers get whisked away to a land only few could dream about. Second Star is filled with friendship, compassion, loyalty, heartache, a little bit of love, and of course a dash of pixie dust.

Think happy thoughts as you fly away with Wendy and her crew in hopes of saving the historical Captain Hook who isn't all he seems to be. Fall in love with Peter and the lost boys all over again in his fantastic retelling. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, a version of Peter Pan where I didn't hate Peter? Sign me up!

This adaption was an absolute joy to read. I loved Wendy and the interactions with her crew and her terrible parents. I adored the Lost Boys.

I loved the way that Hooke's villainy was framed.

And the Shadow? YES!

This book was a joy to read and I would absolutely recommend it!

Love this sci-fi take on Peter Pan and Neverland. It was great to see Wendy shine as a strong, female leader. The way the characters were reworked into the sci-fi story was great and I was looking forward to see each one show up. The story was well paced and did have a cliffhanger ending. Loved it and the cover. Can't wait for the next one!