I remember watching the Peter Pan movie was a kid and being completely fascinated with Neverland, Peter, and Wendy. There was something so sweet about their story; I fell in love right then. So when I heard about a story telling the before of Peter Pan, I was intrigued. I waited anxiously for this book to be released so I could dig in and fall in love.

Not one point of this book disappointed me. I knew it wasn’t going to end perfectly for the characters, simply because I knew the rest of the story. Tiger Lily only knows how to be her, and when someone arrives to her village that starts to say a person has to be a certain way in order to be right, she starts to question herself. She’s a girl, but doesn’t act like one. She doesn’t know how to take care of a home or sew. She knows how to hunt and swim and fit the expectations of being a boy. She doesn’t know what it means to love and when love is right in front of her, life falls apart and she loses herself.

Peter needs Tiger Lily to be everything he is, but just a little less so. He loves that she’s honest and can keep up with him, but it’s not until he meets Wendy that he realizes he wants Tiger Lily to be supportive of him as well, and that’s something she doesn’t know how to do. It hurt my heart as I read because as much as these two loved each other, it just wasn’t quite right and that was going to be their downfall. Even though they loved each other, they needed something different from each other. Unfortunately, they couldn’t change who they were to fit what they needed.

Tiger Lily is heartbreaking in how perfect it is. Even though the ending can be seen before even starting the book, I still spent the entire novel wishing it could end differently. The ending gave me peace, all the while breaking my heart so much I cried a little bit. This is definitely a book people need to read. It’s so achingly wonderful; I didn’t want to put it down.