You may not know her particular struggle, but we're willing to bet you've probably had one of your own challenging situations to overcome. If you've never been kidnapped and held hostage in the desert, why should you care about Gemma's story? Easy. What is Stolen About and Why Should I Care? Christopher is such a good guide that Stolen was a Printz Honor Book in 2011. If this has you feeling a little freaked out, fear not. That's also what makes it so interesting: It takes what seems like a pretty cut and dry, good versus evil premise and totally forces readers to go deep, examining our own presumptions and encouraging us to recognize shared humanity even in the most uncomfortable of circumstances. Still, as Gemma learns the details of Ty's life and background, he goes from looking like a straight-up bad guy to someone with whom it isn't totally ridiculous to empathize … despite holding a girl hostage in the middle of the desert.

To be clear, we here at Shmoop do not advocate child imprisonment or kidnapping-what this guy does is at least 10,000 shades of wrong. In other words, Gemma has every right to totally hate Ty's guts and hope a piano falls from the sky and lands on him.īut she doesn't.

Oh, and just in case this isn't already weird enough for you, it gets worse: He's actually been stalking Gemma for years. We know what you're thinking: What could possibly be complex about the relationship between a teenager and the guy who kidnaps her? Ty drugs Gemma at the airport, goes through an elaborate plan to get her to Australia, and then forces her to live with him in a creepy house he built in the middle of nowhere. It's a dramatic tale of not only survival and rescue but the complex relationship the main character, Gemma, develops with her abductor. The book centers around the kidnapping of a teenage girl, her eccentric captor, Ty, and the psychological consequences of her captivity in the wilderness (and we do mean wilderness) of Australia. Hope you like your stories twisted because that's simply the best way to describe Stolen, Lucy Christopher's award-winning 2010 debut novel.

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