I've read both of Aiden Thomas' books and they're great! I love fairytale retellings but in recent years so many of them have painted Peter Pan to be the villain. I love that we were able to see Peter as almost as "angel" who only wanted to bring joy and calm to those around him and how we battled with his putting that responsibility over his own wants and desires. This was a great read and I highly recommend it.

This retelling is like one I've never read for Peter Pan! We get to see Wendy at 18 encounter our favorite lost boy except it's not under our fairytale bliss. Children are missing in Wendy's town again like when her and her brothers went missing except now Peter needs her help. I loved seeing a not so perfect wendy who had fear and doubts. the villian behind this one was so good you guys and the full circle of emotions blew me away. seriously the last 20% i couldn't put it down, my dinner got cold, i sobbed. but the ending was absolutely what the story needed. it was such a beautiful tale on our classic peter and I cannot wait to see what Aiden writes next!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

This Peter Pan retelling really impressed me. I think retelling of classic children tales are always a little difficult to read, because we know the story so it takes a lot of creativity to make and old story feel new again. Aiden Thomas managed to do that and more. He took something familiar and did something new that told a story far deeper than most retellings. The way grief was captured in this book really hit home. The broken family that the grief for two lost boys seemed realistic. But it also captured the original charm of Peter Pan. There was a mix of adventure and an urge to not grow up and stay with Peter Pan forever. I wouldn't call this a "dark" retelling of Peter Pan, because Aiden Thomas managed to do more than that and calling it that wouldn't do this story justice. I think this started as an interpretation of Peter Pan, but the story has a life of its own.

The atmosphere of Lost in the Never Woods was really well built. It was a mixture of sadness, horror, and coming of age. Nothing was overdone, it really was perfect. I actually had to read this book in small amounts so I could enjoy every part of it.

In terms of audience I can see this being a hit for older middle grade readers to teens. I think it can fit middle school libraries just as well as high school ones. It has a lot of important lessons on growing up and confronting grief that can be useful to many readers.

I really enjoyed this and I will be buying Cemetery Boys next time I'm at a bookstore, I was that impressed with Aiden Thomas's writing style.

Lost in the Never Woods is a darker take on the Peter Pan story we all know and love, but with a mysterious atmosphere and a Wendy Darling who is trying to piece together what happened to her in the woods... It's been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.

Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don't do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what's waiting for her in the woods.

Personally, I found the book to be much slower paced than I'd have liked, and I didn't actually connect with Wendy as a main character all that much. But, I do admire the twist that Aiden Thomas put on this classic tale, and I would recommend it for those who love fairy tales. I haven't read Cemetery Boys yet, but after reading Lost in the Never Woods I am excited to read more of Aiden's work.


CW: abduction, memory loss, death, child death, gun shots, grief

It's possible this just wasn't the book for me, but it's at least slightly more likely that it really is just boring. Everything, and I mean everything, is over explained, and the characters spend a ton of time talking about how they have no time to waste (then not doing anything). I gave it an extra star for an inventive ending.

An exciting modern take on the character of Peter Pan and the aftermath of the Darling children's trip to Neverland.

Wendy is turning 18 and is haunted by the holes in her memory. She and her brothers vanished from the woods five years ago, and only Wendy returned -- six months later, with no idea where she'd been or what happened to her brothers -- just some weirdly patched clothes and an acorn. Her family is destroyed, Wendy can't stop drawing pictures of a mysterious boy and a tree, and then more kids start disappearing.

The initial description (Peter Pan: yikes) didn’t sound like my thing AT ALL until I started reading a preview copy of the first 3 chapters and got immediately sucked in. The GORGEOUS cover was also a huge draw - wowee wow!

The writing is lovely, and the story is engaging, sad, and a little spooky. The pacing was a bit slow in a few spots, but overall this was an extremely enjoyable read!

Highly recommended for middle grade readers.

Thank you to Swoon Reads and NetGalley for the eARC!

When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it! The synopsis sounded so good and I immediately put it on my want to read list! This book did not disappoint! There were a couple parts where I thought the story dragged a little bit but overall it was really fast past and kept me entertained. I loved the modern day setting of Peter Pan and thought it worked really well. I loved the twists. The writing is fantastic and the characters were so well done.

Lost In The Never Woods is a fantastic take on how the Darling children coped with the aftermath of Peter Pan and their adventures in Neverland! Mysterious, imaginative, and intriguing, Aiden Thomas never disappoints!

4 stars.
I love Peter Pan and this take on it is decent. I loved the beginning and middle as everything kept me intrigued but the ending was a little harder to stick it out.

Lost in the Never Woods is an atmospheric reimagining of Peter Pan, with missing children, grief, and the pain of growing up. Wendy is struggling to cope after the disappearance of her two younger brothers, and the novel handles the mental health struggles of the family with empathy and respect. This isn’t quite a ‘retelling’ of Peter Pan, as the novel primarily focuses on the aftermath of the events of Neverland, but it is an engrossing reimagining of the characters nonetheless.

Really really enjoyed this take on Peter Pan! The characters are well written and the story flowed nicely.

Thank you so much, NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Swoon Reads, for the chance to read and review one of my most anticipated read of 2021.

Cemetery Boys was my first read in 2020 and now Lost in the Never Woods started the year with me and I couldn't be happier.
I love Aiden Thomas' imagination and writing style and since Cemetery Boys was one of my favourite book ever, I was over the moon when I got the chance to read Lost in the Never Woods. I'm a huge fan of Peter Pan, so this book was already perfect, without even reading it. Now that I've read it I can surely say it's one of the most incredible, moving and brilliant book I've read in a long time.

TW: anxiety, kidnapping, mental health problems, PSTD, violence

Five years ago Wendy Darling and her brothers, John and Michael, went missing in the woods in Astoria, Oregon. Six months later only Wendy is found, shell-shocked and with no memories of what happened to them and where her brothers are. Years later, when local children start to go again missing in the local woods, Wendy is forced to deal again with the mysterious circumstances of her brothers' disappearance, police questioning her and a mysterious boy who she almost runs over in the middle of the road. It's the boy who lived in her mother's and, later, in Wendy's stories: he's Peter Pan, asking for her help to save the missing children. Wendy is forced to deal with new and traumatizing memories, grappling with fears and the need to save and protect the people she loves and to discover the truth about what really happened years ago.

Aiden Thomas wrote a story so captivating I've devoured it in less than a day. In this sort of "sequel" of Peter Pan, Wendy and Peter investigate missing children, lost shadows and lost memories, trying to understand what to do and save the situation.
Wendy is a young woman, brilliant, determined and she's trying to move on, to have her life, go to college with her best friend Jordan, but she's still trapped in the past, in her feelings of guilt and fear and when kids starts to go missing, kids she knows and cares about, she can't stand still. Peter is energetic, brilliant, smiling, determined and I loved reading their interactions, so intense, but peculiar, because weighed down by skepticism, lost memories, pain and the need to do something in order to help the kids...and Peter himself.

It's a fairytale mixed with a touch of mystery and romance and Wendy and Peter are amazing characters, their relationship genuine and funny, their feelings, fears and doubts relatable and real. It was really interesting reading a book about Wendy and Peter Pan as grown up, or, at least, as teenager, a story where memories of Neverland are interwoven with the crude reality of police, kids missing and families torn apart.
With sensitivity the author deals with grief and loss and how people can react to them in a very different way, how pain can change a person, a family, the interactions within it, how people struggle to move on and find closure.

I also loved how the author talks about the shadows, how they can feed off and represent bad thoughts, fear, sadness and guilt and I saw this as a very intense metaphor for the depression. How when we are sad, upset, full of guilt of bad thoughts, this part weighed us down, trapping and hurting us.

"When you start getting consumed by those feelings, it gives the shadow power over you"

"Those dark thoughts can devour a person and take all their happiness away. They want you to feel isolated and alone. It's like they suck the energy out of you and leave you with nothing."

(quotes are from the earc, so they can be subject to changes)

At the same time, beside being a very fitting metaphor, the auhor conveys hope in how we can find help and strength and fight this shadow.
Lost in the Never woods made me laugh, smile and cry, worry and be on edge. The plot is full of twists and intriguing characters, from the main ones to the side ones like Wendy's family or Jordan, all of them skillfully written in their interactions and feeling. It's a story about grief and loss, family and friendship, the struggle and strength in moving on.

Well, what can I say? Hmmm.... the premise sounded good. The characters were on the realistic side. I did find myself having to force myself to finish it. I enjoyed CB, and I went in thinking, “I’m gonna love this one just as much”. I’m giving it 3/5. I know others will enjoy it more.

Disclaimer: I got this ARC from @netgalley.

I will post an update with an actual review close to the release date, but this was incredible and I'm so thankful I got to end the year reading this!

Thank you to Fierce Reads and Netgalley for this ARC!

I was excited to dive into this new Aiden Thomas book after reading Cemetery Boys earlier this year.

While a wildly different story than Thomas's debut, it maintained an immersive writing style that I flew through equally as fast. This dark Peter Pan retelling had me feeling like I was right there in the Never Woods with Wendy and Peter the whole time.

In Lost in the Never Woods, Wendy and Peter navigate the darkness of the real world as opposed to the classic's fantastic counterpart, Neverland. Children are going missing, Peter has lost his shadow (again), and Wendy is dealing with some repressed memories from her own disappearance 5 years ago.

Overall, the edge-of-your-seat storytelling made for an enjoyable read, though I would have liked some more focus on the characters. I'm a sucker for character-derived books, and these characters were intriguing enough to keep me wanting more! I had a good time reading this, and I look forward to Thomas' future work.

This book was received as an ARC from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group - Swoon Reads in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I could not put this book down. I have read and seen many adaptations of Peter Pan but never in this context. I was unsure to read a book that went in a dark direction making Wendy lost in the woods and the boy she finds is a direct reminder of her days at neverland with Peter Pan. As I read on, I got more and more curious so I had to finish the whole book. I loved all the adaptations so far and this one was right up there with the rest. This is one of my favorite Fairy Tales and I am just in awe of the fact that there are so many versions with so many point of views in so many different directions.

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

“I want you to live, Wendy, not just endure.”

There’s something about the combination of Aiden Thomas’s way with words and the nostalgia that comes from a retelling/sequel to a childhood favorite that just makes you feel... like you’re existing in both the past and the present, like you’re both a child again yet still an adult, all at once.

When Lost in the Never Woods was announced, I immediately added it to every “TBR” list I had. I couldn’t wait to read what Aiden had to say about this chilling view into Wendy’s life. What I wasn’t expecting was how deep into Wendy’s character the story would go; how connected I would feel with this new version of a character we’ve come to know (and love) in the past. And better yet, the callback to other characters that take us right back to our first journey to Neverland, for a brief moment, and then toss us right back into the present with this novel’s mysterious circumstances and captivating twists.

The thing I love about this book the most is the added representation that the author writes in naturally. Throughout the story, Wendy struggles with a form of PTSD due to a tragic event from her past that she is unable to remember. Her parents have their own (albeit, less than healthy) ways of dealing with the past, and both ways read as Wendy seeing them in a disapproving manner, but she is never judgmental about them. Her best friend is of a different nationality, and we get a slight glimpse into her life that adds to the multi-cultural aspect that Thomas is known for.

While I feel like the pacing was a bit different than your typical thriller, I think it was the right tone to set in order to establish a distinct difference in settings between the Walt Disney classic and this upcoming shining star. There were still enough twists and engaging factors that kept me turning the page WELL past the time I should have been awake reading (and if you’re still reading this review, I know you know you’ve lived that before!).

In all honesty, this revamped fairy tale thriller isn’t something you can accurately gauge from any review. I finished the book a week ago, and it took me a while to fully process what I had read... It was one of those “slowly close the book, put it down, stare off into space and just mentally gather your thoughts and emotions” endings to a fantastic novel.

Grab you a copy of Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas in February and see for yourself!

I really love Thomas' Cemetery Boys, so I was primed to love this book. Unfortunately, the heart and humor of CB is really absent in this one. The idea of a real Wendy Darling and Peter Pan, and an eerie woods where boys disappear is interesting, but it's not enough to make up for these lackluster characters. I hate posting negative reviews, but this one just didn't do it for me, so I have to be honest. Everyone is just too sad and everything is just too dark. Maybe this isn't the right time for me to read a book like this. With all this said, Aiden Thomas is a WONDERFUL writer, so do support him. If dark and mysterious is your thing, this book might be for you. If you want humor and love throw in, then definitely check out Cemetery Boys.

The was an interesting book for me - I had a hard time getting into it to start, and I don't know how enjoyable it would be for anyone who is not familiar with Peter Pan. The blend of magic in a very not-magic world felt reminiscent of the "The Magicians" for me, with the same gritty sense of frustration that magic can't fix everything that happens in the real world.

“Lost in the Never Woods” is a contemporary sequel to the definitive Peter Pan story most of us know fairly well thanks to several iterations of the now classic tale. And what surprised me the most was that even though I’ve historically acted with indifference towards this tale, I found myself emotionally committed well before the book’s end.

In what is common for this type of storytelling, the real-world aesthetics juxtapose the fantasy elements, creating tension amongst the characters as they struggle to comprehend between what is real, and what is make believe. Even Wendy, who is struggling with memory loss, spends a fair amount of time questioning her own sanity. These moments very early on make for some of the better passages where her states of delirium and certainty haven’t quite found each other yet. It’s when they do that the mystery really begins to unfold and the “adventure” aspect of the book takes hold. Unfortunately that’s also where the book begins to get away from you, leaving behind what I feel makes this book worth reading.

Once Thomas decides to make this book more about the mystery and the town’s lukewarm reaction to serial abduction, rather than the examination of its core characters and how they interact with each other, I lost interest. As the reader, we understand that what Wendy is experiencing is real, that Peter Pan is real, that Neverland is real, but those around her think that Wendy’s irrationality and erratic behavior are trauma-induced. This is solid work by Thomas here because when you tackle weighty issues using a fairy-tale aesthetic you’re attempting to do something the classics usually failed to. Because “happily ever after” isn’t always the case and this book does attempt to look at how people deal with trauma in their own way, just not all the way through.

The trauma in question affects not only Wendy but her family as well. Her mother in particular comes equipped with a backstory that should’ve gotten at least a chapter all to itself but didn’t. Because her past does have connections that are central to the plot, this is a bit of a dropped ball on Aiden’s part. Her father, dealing with things in his own way, doesn’t garner too much sympathy, but is there when you need him.

As for the boy who wouldn’t grow up, this might not be the Peter Pan you immediately think of when you hear the name, but this isn’t your run-of-the-mill Peter Pan adventure either. But not to worry, Aiden stays true to the essence the character, or as much as can be expected given the cynicism of this real-world setting, and as such, I found myself falling for his whimsical nature and exuberance. So don’t blame Wendy for doing the same, although with her it’s much more profound, as the book does tinker with a romantic plot. But kudos to Aiden for keeping things in check as far as their romance is concerned, in a book that centers on child abduction and other dark themes, a wise decision.

One last thing, please, don’t go into this expecting a follow-up to Cemetery Boys, this is not that, so lower your expectations. And not to devalue this book in any way, but Aiden Thomas can surely be forgiven for not following up one masterpiece with another. That’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to “Lost in the Never Woods” which is overall a good read.