I don’t remember reading Peter Pan as a child. I remember, however, watching the Disney version over and over again; and when I grew up, I replaced it with the version with Jeremy Sumpter (oh, my pre-teen crush). I even read the sequel that was written by another author.
And yet, I’ve never read the original novel (and not even the original play).

I’m sorry I didn’t do it before, because I truly loved the book. Yes, I know that there are a lot of sexist (Wendy being the mother and staying at home instead of having adventures with the Lost Boys) and racist (let’s not start with the Indians that appear) moments, but overall, the novel was pretty enjoyable.

We all know this one, don’t we? One day, the three Darling siblings (Wendy, John and Michael) decided to go out the window with a mysterious magical boy named Peter Pan. Peter Pan is a boy who at some point decided he didn’t want to grow up and run away from home.
And he, somehow, got to Neverland, a place in which children never grow up and they can have adventures all day if they want to. Yay!

But the things begin to get complicated when the Darlings, especially Wendy, begin missing their home and their mother. Peter doesn’t want them to go, so he avoids the topic. That’s a specialty of the boy, actually. Whenever things get complicated, he just avoids them as much as he can. This is somewhat given, considering that he’s a boy that never grew up, no maturity whatsoever.

I loved the contrast between Peter and Wendy. On the one hand, there’s a boy who pointedly refuses to grow and assume responsibilities, while Wendy, more than not wanting them, is afraid of becoming a lady.

If you want to read Peter Pan as being about Wendy rather than Peter, it makes a lot of sense. In a way, she’s getting her final adventure before turning into a young lady in the early 20th century. People expect her to become all proper and so on. At first she appears to reject this image, but when she gets to Neverland and finds out about the Lost Boys and how they live, she installs herself in the position of their mother. In a way, while she’s going to Neverland to escape her growing up, she also ends up growing up there.

And I felt a little sorry for her throughout the whole book. She clearly had feelings for Peter (there’s a moment in which they discuss if they play-acting mom and dad was real or not, and she so wanted it to be real), but he was stuck in the stage in which girls are a bother, rather than anything else. Sorry, Wendy, he’s just not into you!

Peter was so fun to read! Quite full of himself and always patting his own back for everything he did, but he was so sweet in a boyish sort of way. Whenever his insecurities (which he tried to hide most of the time) appeared, I just wanted to hug them.

In the end, the Darlings and the Lost Boys leave Neverland, and Peter, behind. They grew up and got jobs and families, but they kept going once in a while to Neverland with Peter. That is, when he remembered.

The final chapter was the saddest one. First of all, Peter forgetting his friends for many years was terrible. But the worse thing was what happened when he did remember and came back. Wendy was in the nursery, taking care of her little girl. And Peter recognized her voice when he came to look for her.

And then, there’s the moment when Wendy tells him she can’t go with him. And it’s like Peter has just realized what happened with his old friend. I teared up in the moment when Wendy told him that she was going to turn on the light, and Peter was so scared of that… There were people around me and I didn’t even care. I cried like a baby. #SorryNotSorry

I seriously enjoyed this book a lot, even as a grown-up. I think that it’s because, in the long run, I’m still a bit like Peter Pan and refuse to grow up and take responsibilities. I’ve taken some, of course, but I still don’t have my own life figured out and I’m afraid about what’s to come. But I guess we all are.

And we can’t be Peter, so we just have to grow up.