Christopher, Lucy, Steve Wells, and Christopher Stengel. Stolen. New York: Chicken House/Scholastic, 2010. Print.
Stolen has a more unique premise than most YA fare. This is a novel all about perspective. It tells the story of sixteen-year-old Gemma who is kidnapped, not by a creepy older man, but by a young man in his early twenties. Gemma, arguably develops Stockholm Syndrome, which is fascinating to me and something that I would love to teach my students and open up discussion with them about. The only problem I would have if I chose to teach this book is that it is left open to the reader whether Gemma’s kidnapper, Ty, is “good” or “bad.” I am a strong believer in gray area when it comes to morality, but I personally feel that it can be dangerous to expose adolescents to this concept. Teens are at such a young and vulnerable time in their lives that they are already in danger of becoming unsuspecting victims to seemingly charming adults. I wouldn’t want to teach this novel and have any student consequently get the impression that a stalker is ever romantic or that his or her actions are validated. Putting the controversial subject matter aside, there is a lot of teachable content here, such as the epistolary, second-person narrative. The entire novel is written as a letter from Gemma to Ty. I also think that the writing style is quite sophisticated for a young adult novel. I personally liked this novel, but I did take issue with a teenage girl viewing her captor in a somewhat positive and romantic light. Maybe that is the whole point of the novel. I certainly thought that it was realistic. However, since it is written from Gemma’s perspective, the narrator is somewhat unreliable (another teachable moment), and it is quite unsettling. I think I would have enjoyed this novel a lot more if it was written from a grown woman’s perspective or if I had read it as an adolescent myself. As a twenty-eight-year woman, I was too concerned about Gemma’s well-being and fragile state of mind to be swept away by the narrative. However, I will say that Lucy Christopher is such a good writer that I was also somewhat concerned about and felt for Ty—no small feat. As can be expected, his backstory is not a pretty nor a simple one. I would certainly say that Ty is mentally ill and as someone who never had love in his life, he was looking for love in an extremely problematic (not to mention illegal) way. I liked this book, but it was not a favorite nor one that I would reread.
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