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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
I have no idea how I ended up borrowing this book from the library...I think it must have something to do with David Tennant.
This is a silly, fun pirate romp that brought a smile to my face.
This is a silly, fun pirate romp that brought a smile to my face.
Three words: Funny, funny and funny! What a weird surpirse this one was. Well worth it!
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Its funny and an enjoyable read without taking more energy than you have to give
sometimes clever, sometimes 'meh'. tis the fate of the comedy writer and his/her work.
This book automatically merited points from me due to the punctuation mark that excitedly succeeds the word, "Pirates." More points follow because of a) the humor, b) the footnotes, and c) pirate cliches.
Some people gave this book a hard time because it was full of cliches, but I think that that was one of the things that made this book substantially funny.
Rarely do I laugh out loud when reading a book. I nearly fell out of my seat reading this one.
(The four stars are perhaps due to a personal bias. I've always fancied myself a pirate.)
Some people gave this book a hard time because it was full of cliches, but I think that that was one of the things that made this book substantially funny.
Rarely do I laugh out loud when reading a book. I nearly fell out of my seat reading this one.
(The four stars are perhaps due to a personal bias. I've always fancied myself a pirate.)
This book was a weird juxtaposition, probably due to my personality and frustration with early 2000s men. But we'll get into that. It's also due to the strange coexistance of a middle grade feeling (no swearing, things are very silly, the book is short, and the writing style feels aimed toward kids and teens. On the otherhand, there's pretty jarring violence (though not described in gory details) and weird, casual misogyny and pervy attitudes/behavior from both the author and the characters.
At its heart, this book has a lot of great things in it. The writing is silly and lighthearted, there were lines that genuinely made me laugh, and it's overall a fun time. Defoe purposely uses anachronisms to make fun of the setting or environment, like fighting using elements from the periodic table, which had not been invented yet, or a visit to a pier with arcade games and mini golf. It adds an even more absurdist element to the story, if you couldn't gather that from the characters and events thus far.
I also very much enjoyed the random facts in the footnotes, which would pop up at all sorts of random times. I learned some interesting things and the times Defoe decided to insert them also felt entertaining.
Unfortanately, the juxtoposing moods or attitudes really threw me off. The more juvenile writing style and plotting was interrupted by some really violent concepts, like when Darwin (yes, that Darwin) and Robert FitzRoy (yes, that FitzRoy) were dueling over the love of a lady, who interrupts them and is promptly murdered by a canonball in front of them, yet the two men casually shrug it off and proceed with the book's events. Or the casual walking the plank of like, 10 men to make more room on the ship. Or the casual disappearance of young women and the appearance of their dried up corpses. It's just very odd and very casual.
Another damper was the treatment or attitudes toward women. There are LOTS of mentions of looking down women's tops, hoping women will put out, etc. It just felt like casual sexism and pervvy behavior sprinkled in the book. There is one woman who has speaking lines, and she's a damsel in distress. One of Darwin's visible signs of his success is that he has hooked some groupies who are presumably going to sleep with him for no other reason than he's now famous and going to be wealthy? I could see many people skipping right over these details or not even noticing them, but they were glaring in my opinion, and it felt gross to read, because you could remove those lines or elements and the book would be exactly the same but with less sexism or gross attitudes toward women.
Finally, and this is due to my own brain, sometimes I became frustrated when the silly comedy was derived by a character making an extremely illogical decision as if there were no stakes involved. It may be that when there are possible stakes, like a pirate chatting up a lady instead of escaping the imminent death he was facing, felt like a time to drop the humor and actually advance the plot, but nothing in this book can and should be taken seriously, I guess.
At its heart, this book has a lot of great things in it. The writing is silly and lighthearted, there were lines that genuinely made me laugh, and it's overall a fun time. Defoe purposely uses anachronisms to make fun of the setting or environment, like fighting using elements from the periodic table, which had not been invented yet, or a visit to a pier with arcade games and mini golf. It adds an even more absurdist element to the story, if you couldn't gather that from the characters and events thus far.
I also very much enjoyed the random facts in the footnotes, which would pop up at all sorts of random times. I learned some interesting things and the times Defoe decided to insert them also felt entertaining.
Unfortanately, the juxtoposing moods or attitudes really threw me off. The more juvenile writing style and plotting was interrupted by some really violent concepts, like when Darwin (yes, that Darwin) and Robert FitzRoy (yes, that FitzRoy) were dueling over the love of a lady, who interrupts them and is promptly murdered by a canonball in front of them, yet the two men casually shrug it off and proceed with the book's events. Or the casual walking the plank of like, 10 men to make more room on the ship. Or the casual disappearance of young women and the appearance of their dried up corpses. It's just very odd and very casual.
Another damper was the treatment or attitudes toward women. There are LOTS of mentions of looking down women's tops, hoping women will put out, etc. It just felt like casual sexism and pervvy behavior sprinkled in the book. There is one woman who has speaking lines, and she's a damsel in distress. One of Darwin's visible signs of his success is that he has hooked some groupies who are presumably going to sleep with him for no other reason than he's now famous and going to be wealthy? I could see many people skipping right over these details or not even noticing them, but they were glaring in my opinion, and it felt gross to read, because you could remove those lines or elements and the book would be exactly the same but with less sexism or gross attitudes toward women.
Finally, and this is due to my own brain, sometimes I became frustrated when the silly comedy was derived by a character making an extremely illogical decision as if there were no stakes involved. It may be that when there are possible stakes, like a pirate chatting up a lady instead of escaping the imminent death he was facing, felt like a time to drop the humor and actually advance the plot, but nothing in this book can and should be taken seriously, I guess.
I love the style of books...the pirates are running around the world with Darwin and eating starbursts to stave off scurvy!