If someone had told me this was an after WWII story I possibly would have picked it up sooner.
if someone had told me this was a Peter Pan retelling I might not have picked it up.
I spent over half the story thinking it was some sort of steampunk world. ( )

In the right hands, I am sure this book will be loved. Sadly, that was not me.

I think a major problem for me is that I went into this book expecting a retelling of Peter Pan and that wasn't what I got. It is better to think of it as inspired by Peter Pan or just take out that idea completely.

As a warning, this book us extremely depressing, with much of it focused on abuse, child homelessness and racism. I didn't expect it to be quite so heavy. This might have turned out ok, but unfortunately I didn't feel connected to any of the characters and so it made for a difficult read.

Our two main characters don't meet until about the halfway point, something that surprised me since the blurb mentions their initial encounter that ends up being slightly spoilerish due to how far in this happens.

Overall, I think the writing was good, and even the story itself, but I had my hopes set on a Peter Pan fairy tale and something not quite as depressing. ( )