Review: Girl, Stolen

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

publisher: Henry Holt & Company (Macmillan)

release date: September 28th, 2010

hardcover, 224 pages

intended audience: Young adult

source: Around the World Tours

rating:


description from Goodreads:
Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price?

Review: This was such a fascinating read! It was thrilling and fast-paced, I literally gasped a few times! The story was told from alternating view points and sometimes this can be distracting, but here it really worked well. Both main characters were really well written. Cheyenne, who's blindness is fairly new (she wasn't born that way, she's been blind for three years) and I felt that was very authentically presented. From the author's notes and thank yous, you can see she really took the time to rese ...more This was such a fascinating read! It was thrilling and fast-paced, I literally gasped a few times! The story was told from alternating view points and sometimes this can be distracting, but here it really worked well. Both main characters were really well written. Cheyenne, who's blindness is fairly new (she wasn't born that way, she's been blind for three years) and I felt that was very authentically presented. From the author's notes and thank yous, you can see she really took the time to research this thoroughly and that definitely shows. It added depth to her character that she could still envision the world around her and had also developed the heightened senses that sometimes come with blindness. Cheyenne was very aware of her limitations, but pulled out all her other strengths to survive this ordeal.

I liked seeing the situation from Griffin's point of view as well. Yes, he steals the car and makes the bad choice to not let Cheyenne go immediately, but as soon as you get a glimpse at his reason for making these decisions, you can't help but be a little sympathetic to his situation. He is not at all what he seems to be at first, and once you get to know this character, you start to root for him to turn it around and do something heroic to make it right. I just wanted to see him get cut a little break.

Having such real and complex characters really added to the punch of this story---you really get wrapped up in the terror, the excitement, and the hope that everything turns out alright! Highly recommend this one!

Visit April Henry's website here!