Congratulations to Lucy Christopher for f*cking up teen me with the first book and now f*cking me up again ten years later. I don’t think any other author has ever managed to do that. Lucy Christopher really waiting more than ten years to write this one, to make sure that I, like Gemma, had plenty of time to think about Ty and obsess over him (and believe me, there has not been a single year since I have read Stolen that I have not thought about it. Probably not even a single month). I never expected to get a sequel for Stolen, so imagine my surprise when at the beginning of the year I was once again in a downward spiral, using 99% of my brain capacity thinking about Gemma and Ty, only to go on the Goodreads page of the book and seeing ”Stolen #1” underneath the title. I don’t know what I expected a sequel to be like, because, once again, like Gemma, I am pretty sure I lost my mind somewhere in book one and haven’t really found common sense again reading this one. I don’t know what it is about Lucy Christophers writing (is it the second person perspective? do I feel more immersed because of it, like it’s me who is talking to Ty? is that what it is? I just know that since reading Stolen, second person books make my brain go brrrr) but it’s so very easy to lose yourself in Gemma’s emotions. I think I am in love with Ty. Every time Gemma says something that a part of me has to know is just certified insane, a bigger part of me just nods like, yeah, obviously. Of course. Seems reasonable. I was like, “Oh yeah, definitely, Ty will be 100% into, they will just talk and have fun and all will be well, this makes sense😊” IN WHAT WORLD DOES THAT MAKE SENSE JONATHAN Does anyone know where I can demand financial compensation from the author for giving me Stockholm Syndrome? Thanks in advance. Release is really fun because it made me realize what an unreliable narrator Gemma is. ”So, is the defendant a fantasist? Can you see behind her mask? Can you see the evil behind her exterior? You heard it yourself […] that the defendant is good at manipulating, that she likes to make up stories. So, ask yourself – is this all just a story? Is she trying to convince you to believe her own private fantasy? And do you, members of the jury, want to choose her fantasy as the truth?” *with a weird sort of glee in my voice* I don’t know!!!! Who knows how much of what Gemma is telling me in this book is true? Who knows if it’s not already book one that has been a lie? I am having a mental breakdown. I need to talk about the ending of this. And the beginning. And the middle. But mostly the ending. This already isn’t much of a review but I don’t care. I am not writing this for either of you. This is for past me and present me and future me alone. “Perhaps you’ve come for me, like I came for you, for revenge or even forgiveness. Perhaps we’re even.”
I am pretty sure I screamed. Probably cried.
Gemma thinking that she will just pick up Ty from prison and they will go have dinner and then go back to the den because that is just logic 101 and then being confused when Ty is like “Hell, no”
- Same.
After reading book one there is literally no reason for me to go into this not trusting her. But having finished this now: who the f*ck knows what’s true anymore?
I have too many feelings and I have always had too many feelings about this book (now series) and I might combust if I don’t put them down somewhere.
So there will be MASSIVE SPOILERS 🚨🚨🚨🚨
”Is our story really a whole lot more sinister? Is there another, darker version about what happened with a gun and a waterhole that day?”
Release starts basically with Gemma being in this weird obsessive state. Ty is still in prison and she is not sure whether she wants him to be there, wants him back, or wants to kill him.
Honestly same, though there was always one ending I preferred, so I might be biased wanting a happy ever after – which just happens to also be the ending that makes the least amount of sense and could only come from a crazy person who obsessed over this for a good ten years ... so me and Gemma.
When Gemma learns that Ty is getting released from prison, she loses her mind even more and decides to go back to Australia and meet him. Which mind you, is pretty dumb and also illegal but I am all for them reconnecting so what does the law even matter at that point.
Ty – WEIRDLY ENOUGH – does not want to reconnect with Gemma but just wants to live his life now that he’s finally out of prison. So Gemma does the only obvious thing Gemma could do: she kidnaps him.
”Kidnapping. I say it out loud. Because that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? I’m you now. But I’ll finish the job. I’ll do it better.”
Oh how the tables have tabled.
What follows is just a plot that gives me an immeasurable amount of anxiety which led to me taking weeks to finish the book the first time and then again months to finish it for the second time because I am weak and I do not like anything about the vibe in this book (untrue) (but also true).
Ty doesn’t really communicate with Gemma for the biggest part of this book and Gemma is just obsessed with getting back to the den on one hand and on the other she is in this weird mental state where we’re all honestly unsure on whether Ty is going to be her f*ck, marry, or kill choice.
”I’m becoming less off a victim, as you become more of one.”
Ah yes, the duality of a woman: to kill or not to kill – is there even a decision to be made?
Not really, in my opinion. There was always only one way to end this.
After kidnapping Ty and bringing him to the den it becomes very clear to Gemma that the man is not happy about this turn of events and he will not do what she seems to want him to do.
”I thought you’d at least feel remorse.”
“Then what, we’d start over?”
So after getting into a major fight with him, she does the only logical thing: hit him on the head with a spade and leave him in the desert to die.
Cause that’s it. That’s the release she wanted, isn’t it. There is a lot of foreshadowing about Gemma killing Ty in the first half. She talks about it nonstop. She writes his name with a blood red full stop.
- But she also keeps saying that that isn’t what she wants. So what does Gemma want?
After having left him to die, Gemma decides to come back and save him.
”I don’t think I can do this. I can’t leave this place, can’t leave you. Because leaving you is leaving me too.”
So she returns. She saves Ty and they slowly get closer again.
Which if you’re me and a little bit brain damaged at this point by all that shortage of breath this book has given you, you’ll be like: hell yeah!! It’s what we came here for!! It’s what we want!! Gemma has decided and she has chosen love!!
And then Ty disappears and Gemma is on trial for his alleged murder.
But. Is it alleged?
”Do it, if you want. [Shoot me.] I’ve come to reckon you deserve it.”
What Gemma wants is a release. She says it, time and time again. She is haunted by Ty (you and me both, girl). Every moment of her entire life for the past ten years has been dominated by him.
”Here is why I can’t let you go, why we’re here. I want that fantasy. I’ve been hanging on to it for ten years. It didn’t matter that I was a mess in London, or never had friends, or a boyfriend, or fun. I had you. I had this in my future.”
Gemma wants to go back. Back to the past. Back to ten years ago. She wants to do it again. But better. She said it so before. ”But I’ll finish the job. I’ll do it better.”
So what does going back entail?
Going back means doing onto Ty what he has done onto her. And that isn’t just the kidnapping. Ty made her fall in love. Ty made her trust him. Depend on him.
So she needed to do the same.
This is why Gemma goes back after hitting him with the spade. Because she can’t let him die like that. It isn’t finished.
Yes, she has kidnapped him. And so what? They haven’t had an actual conversation yet. He doesn’t FEEL the DESPERATION she has felt for all those years. He isn’t consumed by wanting to go back to the den, wanting to go back to how things were before. He doesn’t want to stay with her.
OF COURSE, he can’t die like that? What would she have solved this way? Nothing.
So Gemma goes back. She cares for him. She nurses him back to health. And suddenly, the tables have really turned: Now it’s Ty who’s the kidnappee, falling for his kidnapper. Trusting her. Obsessing over the thought of staying.
”Maybe we could stay,” you tell me, whispering into my neck.”
”I mean it,” you say. “About staying. What else have we got now anyway? Just this.”
Now when I look at you, I see something of myself in your expression, a yearning for the impossible, a spark that’s going to set you on fire and destroy you.”
But now they’re basically back at square one. And this is also not what Gemma wants. She came for a release. Not to repeat the past.
”But I understand, at last, that even if no one else comes here ever again, us being here isn’t what I want. Not now. I want a different kind of ending.”
”But you could find me, I could tell you where. A new place.”
“There’s no new place.”
”Why did you bring me here if you …?”
“You need to disappear. That’s why.”
So how can she end it? How can she do to him what he has done to her but better? There is only one ending for them and there has always been.
”You tap your chest, your heart, my target. You smile, all teeth. Maybe this is what you really want. Or what I want. True release. I put my eye up against the gun and look down the barrel.”
Ultimately, it’s for the reader to decide what happened. Gemma doesn’t really give us a clear answer. She leaves hints. But she makes them vague enough and open to interpretation. She is and always has been an unreliable narrator.
Who on earth knows what’s true? Who even knows what about the events of the first book was true? We want to trust her because we’re in her head and she has build up that trust many years ago. But we never see another side than hers.
”And do they believe my story? Do they think I’m a reliable narrator? And where’s your voice in all this, Ty? Have I rendered you dumb?”
Personally, I think there is only one interpretation for this.
Ty’s gone. Gemma shot him and hid his body in the cave at the bottom of the pool. That’s the only way because if he’s not dead there is risk of repeat. Of their story starting over and over. Of both of them being stuck in a vicious cycle. If he isn’t dead there’s no release. And release was the only point.
”But I have released you. For better or for worse, I have released us all.”
In an unusual turn of events I am in the minority of people who absolutely loved this book. Usually it’s the other way around. And I feel like the people who didn’t enjoy this went into it expecting a different kind of story.
This book is not a romance. The first one already wasn’t, so why would this one be.
If you go into it expecting a cheap dark romance esque situation, you are going into it the wrong way.
It may be a story about love. But it was never going to have a happy ever after (I know I also said that I wanted one, but, consider this - I am also an unreliable narrator).
This is the perfect sequel. This has the perfect ending. There was only one way to do this and she did it. Were we all expecting a love story? Yes – but that’s the f*cking point!!
If you think this should have ended with them being in love and together – I’m afraid you haven’t understood anything about this series. That was never an option. You were only supposed to feel like it was.
Ultimately, I think this book works best for people who have indeed waited as long as Gemma has. Those who like me have read Stolen when it was first published and sat with it for many many years. I don’t think the impact is quite the same if you read them back to back.
And what a power move by Lucy Christopher to write the sequel ten years later.
Will this stay with me like Stolen did? Or have I, like Gemma, finally found a release with this?
Only time will tell.
Now you all can finally stop bothering me about this review.
