Stolen vs. Girl, Stolen

I've had both of these YA books on my TBR list for awhile so I decided to read them back to back to see how they compared.

Both involve the abduction of 16 year old girls.  In both books the girls are white, upper class, low-risk, fairly well adjusted teenagers.  Both were good books and fairly suited to the target audience although I'd say Stolen was more mature than Girl, Stolen.  In both books the girls are strong and attempt to get away from their captors, but in the end also develop sympathy toward their kidnapper, however my reaction to each kidnapper was a little bit different.

The biggest difference is that Cheyenne of Girl, Stolen is blind and Gemma of Stolen is not.  That adds an interesting dynamic to the story, how to identify her captors and get away.  Cheyenne remains in roughly the same area she is kidnapped from, but Gemma who is from London is kidnapped from a Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian desert.  She is taken very far from home.  This, however, is what made Stolen my favorite of the two books.  The descriptions of Australia, the land, the plants, the animals are what set  this book apart and made it much more interesting.  The dynamic that developed between Gemma and Ty was really frustrating and I was almost rooting for Ty in the end.  It was like I had Stockholm Syndrome too.

I've only done a tiny compare and contrast, but it'd probably make a fairly decent English paper for any teenagers out there casting about for a topic.  I'm sure there are a few more books out there to throw in.  I enjoyed both of these books, they were quick interesting reads that I'd recommend.