Forced into love, or meant to be?

It was a lose-lose situation for both of them.  Apologies flew, but it would never make a difference, they were in love. Her with him, her kidnapper… him with the girl he’d fallen in love with so many years ago. There was no way either of them could ever make this right. In the story Stolen, by Lucy Christopher, Gemma doesn’t realize that she is being manipulated until after she is already in the Australian Desert. The main theme in ‘Stolen’ is manipulation.  

She’s a sitting duck right on the first page of the book, like she’s just waiting for his initial exploitation. This girl isn’t necessarily stupid, but she isn’t very bright either, naïve more or less. What sensible person goes off with a perfect stranger. Maybe if she would have used some common sense she could have avoided being stuck with Ty. Some people might say that it was pure randomness that Ty chose Gemma, but I think that it was meant to be. That at some point, one way or another, they would have found each other. Maybe, or by pure fate if it would have been a normal  situation, they would still be together. It could be called fate considering how much they have in common though one may argue.

During the book you realize that there is almost a…‘Drunk Love’ between Gemma and Ty. Just the way that she describes him seems loving, without her even realizing it. Realizing that she loved him earlier in the book could have been beneficial to her because she might not have gotten bitten and had to leave her true love. We see another example of manipulation very similar to this in the classic: ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Their parents tried to manipulate them into not seeing each other anymore, but they rebelled against them. Siblings, and parents, these two teens had it from their entire family. Forced not to  be together by the hatred of the families. Despite all of this manipulation coming from everywhere they looked, they were able to be together against their families’ wilds wishes. stayed together.

Now Ty is locked away in prison and Gemma is home and alone and hurt. But why? Is it because she was forced to love him, or because she actually fell in love with him? Feeling alone and hurt, was only because of the manipulation Ty used on her. Manipulation or not, if they would have spent time together, I’m sure they would have fallen deeply in over. If he never would have influenced her, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him. That was his greatest manipulation of all.