Stolen Chapter Summary

Stolen by Lucy Christopher initially takes place in the Bangkok airport, but the majority in the novel takes place in a remote desert in Australia. The main characters are, a 16 year old girl named Gemma Toombs, the protagonist, and 24 year old man, Ty, the antagonist, his real name being Tyler MacFarlane. The novel starts off with Gemma in Bangkok airport, waiting for her next flight. Ty is from Australia and takes her from the airport to Australia. They end up in the middle of the Great Sandy Desert in the Australian outback, where nobody can be found for hours. Tyler then brings her to a house he has built in the middle of that desert, making her stay there.
Tyler MacFarlane is a very troubled person, leading him to kidnap Gemma after stalking

her for six years. He was abandoned by his mother, and his father became an alcoholic, leading him to run away. Eventually, though, Ty was caught and sent to England to go with his mother, and while being in England, he met 10 year old Gemma. He is described by Gemma as being attractive, muscular, extremely tan, and has blonde hair with blue eyes. He had a very troubled life that led to the use of drugs and drinking, and Gemma, at the age of 10, showed him kindness, leading him to fall in love with her. He is mentally unstable, desperate, and artistic. He steals Gemma and claims he is saving her showing he is mentally unstable, he illustrates he is desperate throughout the novel because has been stalking her, is in love with her, and feels like he has to kidnap her. Lastly, he is artistic and creative because he spends days painting a beautiful room mural of the land, and eventually his body along with it, along with being creative and intelligent by thinking of ways of surviving in a remote desert, and how to keep Gemma around.
The author gives the exposition that Gemma is in Bangkok airport with her parents, waiting for their next flight, and becomes a little hungry, so she ends up going to a coffee shop.

This is where she meets Ty, and he offers to buy her a coffee, and ends up drugging it to kidnap her. The conflict of this novel is that Gemma is kidnapped by her stalker, and she is stuck in the middle of a remote Australian desert, which Ty calls the Great Sandy Desert, and struggles to get away so she can go back home to London. She also finds out that there are no people for hours, so there’s no point in trying to escape. The other main conflict is how Gemma feels emotionally for Tyler. Although it’s not as big and obvious as the conflict of being kidnaped and in a remote area, as well as trying to escape, it’s an important detail to this novel. Throughout the novel, Gemma struggles to identify with her feelings about Ty, because she always says that he’s basically a psycho monster, but also thinks he’s attractive and eventually doesn’t want to be separated from him, as well as slowly falling in love with him. The rising action in Stolen is when Gemma gets bitten by a snake after following Tyler out to the Separates, leading her to freak out and get bitten by a poisonous snake that he was trying to catch. Although Ty has antivenom that he stole from a research lab, it fails to work on Gemma leading him to take her to the nearest area with a doctor, which is a mine site hours away. Ty has the camel carry Gemma on its back until they reach the car, in which he lets the camel go free, and drives to the mine site. Once they get to the mine site, he rushes Gemma to a doctor in which they take her to a better hospital in Australia. The climax of the novel is when Ty is arrested by the hospital security in Australia and taken to the prison because he kidnapped her, which leads to a trial in which Ty pleads not guilty. These events lead to Gemma having to see psychiatrists after getting out

of the venom induced coma, in which one suggests that she may have Stockholm Syndrome, and suggests she writes about what happened and how she feels. Gemma is stuck between a rock and a hard place, either telling only the evil side of Ty, or the kind and caring side of Ty, and decides to tell the judge both sides of him. The conflicts are resolved when Ty is about to get sentenced, but Gemma doesn’t care about how many years he gets, as well as writing “Good-bye, Ty, Gemma,” which signifies not only the end of the novel, but the end of her feelings for him and their lives together.
A theme that can be derived from the novel is compassion and forgiveness. Ty and Gemma show compassion and forgiveness to each other throughout the novel, for example, it started when Gemma showed compassion for Ty when nobody else would, which led to him showing his own way of being compassionate in stealing her to “save her,” from her life in London. Although, it is mostly shown when he lets Gemma go even though he knew the risks of getting arrested, along with having to let her go. This is illustrated with, “‘Good-bye, Gem,’ you whispered. ‘You’ll be OK.’ You touched the ring on my finger as you started to pull away...And then, you were being pulled off me. You were being held...You didn’t cry. You didn’t move. You just stood there, like a rock, watching me, while the hospital staff closed in around you. You were the one being hunted now.” (Christopher 269-270) In this quote, Gemma tells about when he was getting arrested by the hospital staff, and risking his own life to save hers, because he knew that if he went with her, there was a huge risk of being caught as her kidnapper, and going to jail. Though Ty knew the risks, he still decided to save her life over his, showing her his love for her and compassion for her, over the concern for his own life. Forgiveness, although, is shown toward the end of the novel, where Gemma is finishing her letter to Tyler, right before sentencing. Although she won’t say he is not guilty, she also won’t admit that he was evil and was a horrible monster, because she forgave and fell somewhat in love with him. For example, “When I get to court I’m going to tell...My truth. I will say that you kidnapped me...how you drugged me, and of your mood swings. I won’t shy away from the evil you can be. But I’ll tell them of your other side too...the times you rescued me. I will tell them how you chose prison rather than let me die...I am grateful, Ty, believe me I am...The judge will sentence you. I can’t stop that...I can’t save you the way you want me to. But I can tell you what I feel. It’s not much. But it may give you a chance.” (Christopher 297-298) This signifies that though Gemma won’t lie and say he didn’t kidnap, drug her, and such, she still won’t say that he is a horrible person who needs to be locked up either. By stating what she did in that letter, it proves she has shown forgiveness to him, despite all that happened, because she still has a love for him, and doesn’t want him to face the worst.
The main conflict in this novel might be internal self vs. internal self with Gemma. She has a hard time dealing with her feelings and thoughts toward her kidnapper, Tyler MacFarlane. At the beginning of the novel, after she is kidnapped, she absolutely despises him, and tries to kill him and/ or herself until about halfway through the novel. At about halfway, she begins to feel less hatred towards him, after he lets her in on his life, and tells her more information about himself, and how they met for example. It isn’t until about ¾’s through the book, where she begins to fall in love with Ty the same way he is in love with her, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to love him or care for him. Though, in the end it is resolved by her admitting in her letter to him, that she did have some sort of love for him, but also won’t lie for him or save him, because of what he did. The end result is that she ends the letter by saying, “Good-bye, Ty, Gemma,” symbolizing that she is letting him go, along with her feelings for him.
I feel like the biggest challenge I faced while reading Stolen by Lucy Christopher, was barely having enough time to finish it due to my schedule. I think it was a little on the easier side to read, but according to Scholastic, it’s at a grade 9-12 reading level. Although it was a 9-12 grade reading level, I felt like there wasn’t as much “higher,” vocabulary in the novel. I also had a tiny bit of confusion in certain parts due to the fact that I’m American, but the author is British/ Australian, so it was hard to understand some of the phrases stated, because they aren’t used often or at all in America. For next quarter, I should clear up my schedule a little bit more so that I can finish it in time again.