Everland (The Everland Trilogy, Book 1) (Volume 1)

Got on time in good condition

Awesome retelling and beautiful cover though the condition is not good

Book Review: Everland by Wendy SpinaleEverland is a steampunk, real world spin off of Peter Pan, and I absolutely love the idea of this book. Integrating real world problems like disease, wars, and hunger makes it unique. When you start reading the book, you can distinguish the similarities from this book from the popular children’s story about Peter Pan.The book starts off with first person view of Gwen, who lives with her siblings Joanna and Mikey. Gwen is fifteen years old and has to take care of her siblings because her parents are supposedly dead from a disease that overtook London. Required to take care of her family, she is forced to grow up. She goes off into the dangerous city to scavenge and fight for her life. Marauders also known as soldiers are patrolling for kids to kill and use as experiments for a cure.Throughout chapter and chapter, point of views are changed with Hook. Captain Hans Otto Oswald Kretschmer is head of the German army. His main mission to find a cure in England's Borders. Capturing as many kids to find a cure for himself, not caring for his army. All the adult in England have died but kids seem to be immune. Later on in the story, they find out Gwenn is the key to the cure and goes out hunting for her.Jumping back to Gwenn’s point of view, Joanna, her sibling, was taken and her goal is to get her back. When planning to get Joanna, she meets Pete and Bella who are apart of a gang called Lost Boys. The Lost boys have been hiding underground since the disease outbreak, hiding from the marauders. Pete and Belle have their own specific characteristics that connect them to the story “Peter Pan”. The lost boys take in Gwenn and Miket, and help them get their sister back. During the endeavor, they encounter obstacles.I loved this book. I have a soft spot for anything steampunk theme. If you enjoy realistic theme integrated into story tale fiction than you will like this book. Adventurous, fast paced book that any age can enjoy.

Everland is everything you could want in a Steampunk retelling of Peter Pan. I particularly loved the Lost Boys community and the emphasis on valuing people as individuals and respecting their contributions. Of course such a community is not without conflict and that was realistically shown as well. But resourcefulness and an inclusive mentality, which are hallmarks of the Steampunk genre, shone brightly in every scene with the subterranean society.Action, danger, cool Steampunk gadgets and world building, and a touch of romance made this book a classic in its own right.

This book had potential and I sadly had my hopes up and was brutally disappointed.The characters are bland and overall useless. The plot makes sense it just didn't matter really. The characters failed to make you care about them or their problems. The villain, Captain Hook is a whinny man-child who's interior monologue NEVER fails to complain about how his step mother, the queen never loved him or was mean to him. Like okay, cool story bro. Every chance he got he would remind us. The protagonists were Gwen and Pete and they were there. There was some romance between them but it wasn't great to read about especially considering Gwen was apparently disgusting as she hadn't showered in who knows how long. The side characters were interchangeable for the most part, and so much just didn't make any sense.It just didn't live up to the expectations...

I was not entirely sold on this book when it came in my Owlcrate box last year since I am not into Peter Pan and retellings are usually hit-and-miss with me but decided to give it a try for Owlcrate-a-thon (Owlcrate readathon). I am glad I did. It is sort of like The Walking Dead meets Lord of the Flies.This story revolves around Gwen (never called Wendy in this retelling) trying to keep her siblings, Joanna and Mikey, alive after a plague wipes out almost everyone in England and possibly the world except for young children especially boys. This plague started after Queen Katherina of Germany had her son, Captain Herman Otto Oswald Kretschmer, or Captain HOOK, invade England and destroy a weapons lab that contained the virus that killed or sickened just about everyone. Captain HOOK and his Marauders now search for survivors which are mostly young boys so they can be experimented on in hopes of finding a cure. When out scavenging for food one day in Everland (old London), Gwen runs into Pete and Bella when trying to hid from Marauders and they follow her home to discover Joanna has been taken by Marauders. Gwen and Mikey decide to join Pete's group, the Lost Boys in the Lost City, in order to get help rescuing Joanna. Gwen, despite her age and gender, appears to be showing none of the virus' flesh-eating symptoms which leads them to think she is immune and the key to finding a cure that is starting to affect a third of the Lost Boys. Once Captain HOOK finds out about the possible "Immune" he will stop at nothing to get Gwen so he can return home a hero.It was more of a dystopian novel (one of my favorite genre) than steampunk to me and the references to the retelling of the Disney movie Peter Pan were the famous lines reused in a totally difference context most times than in the original story. The end-of-the-world scenario reminded me of The Walking Dead in the way they had to fight for their survival against not only disease but other survivors and Lord of the Flies in the way that it is a colony of children and there is some in-fighting. I loved this book and cannot wait for the sequel.I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.