Stolen by Lucy Christopher

When I started reading this book, another came to mind that I had read not long ago. Stolen has many parallels to the book Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. Both dealt with the abduction of a young girl, though Stolen was different in the way that the protagonist had some empathy for her abuductor.

Stolen centered around a 16 year old girl English named Gemma, who was en route to Vietnam with her parents. In the airport, she is drugged and kidnapped by a 25 year old man named Ty who had apparently been following her for years. The story is told through a letter Gemma wrote to Ty after her release.

She is taken from a Bangkok airport after Ty buys her coffee and puts a drug in it. After she begins to feel the effects, he changes her appearance and eventually leads her back to a remote area of the Austrailian Outback. Ty lives soley on the land itself, and when confronted about why he brought her there, all he could say was he wanted to "save her" from big-city life and the emptiness it brings to all people.

The story is odd in the way that not once did the captor try and have any sexual relations with Gemma, nor did he try and hurt her, other than to keep her from escaping. He merely wanted to keep her there so he could have her company and show her that beauty can be a simple life.

The reader is taken back in time to Gemma's childhood up through her adolescence as Ty explains how he has been following her all these years and the people in her life who he has "saved" her from, even though she sees it as being "stolen" from them, as any kidnapp victim would.

The story also takes the reader into the beauty of the land and the many vivid colors of the rainforest and wildlife that would be encountered in an area that is off the map. Gemma comes to appreciate the beauty of nature even though she trys several times to escape, only to find Ty there to "rescue" her from the elements in which she isn't as familiar.

In the quest for her rescue, there is a very interesting paralell with the release of a camel that is clearly much like the life that Gemma is living for the month or so that she is stolen. Ty has mercy on her when she is bitten by a poisonous snake, as he can see as time goes on that she is getting worse and needs the help of professional medical treatment. This leads them to a hospital in Austrailia where Ty turns himself in and begins the journey home for Gemma. How she reacts to it all when she is back with her parents is interesting, but seen in many victims of Stockholm Syndrome.

A riviting read, I would definitely recommend this book to mature teen audiences as well as adults. While Gemma in some respects is not a likable character, she acts like one would expect any kidnap victim to react to their captor when she questions and fights with him as well as her many attempts to escape. And while Ty can be seen as the monster who took this innoncent young girl from everything she knows and everyone she loves, he also shows compassion. This would also make an excellent movie.