januaryf's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Story was good but I didn't like all the "ain't" and "don't never" in the main characters speech.
seriouslybookish's review against another edition
3.0
3.75 stars.
I liked it. I didn't want to like it but I did. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable duology and I am glad I decided to pick it up.
I liked it. I didn't want to like it but I did. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable duology and I am glad I decided to pick it up.
hgranger's review against another edition
3.0
Satisfying conclusion to The Assassin’s Curse; with some funny supporting characters, and decent action scenes. When the book opens Annana and Naji are still stuck on the Isle of Sky but the book quickly picks up and the search for the cure to the curse continues. I appreciated the ending that allowed both Naji and Annana to be true to themselves while finding happiness.
moirwyn's review
4.0
This review originally appeared on my blog, Books Without Any Pictures:
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2014/08/21/pirates-wish-cassandra-rose-clarke/
The Pirate’s Wish is the sequel to Cassandra Rose Clarke’s The Assassin’s Curse. Naji is an assassin, and he’s under a curse to protect the pirate Ananna because she accidentally saved his life while he was trying to kill her. He feels pain any time that she’s in danger, which is pretty much all the time, because Ananna is free-spirited and her childhood on a pirate ship gave her a warped definition of danger.
The previous book ends with Ananna and Naji marooned on a magical island where reality doesn’t stay put and even something as simple as getting a drink of water can be an adventure. Naji tells Ananna to stay home while he’s out fishing, but instead she goes into the woods to visit the wizard and meets a manticore instead. The manticore is a prissy princess, and is quite vain. She’s also my favorite character in the book. Manticores eat people, but Ongraygeeomryn (try saying that three times fast) promises not to eat Ananna because she doesn’t like female flesh, and she can’t eat Naji either because his curse would make him taste terrible. Instead, she and Ananna forge an unlikely friendship, and Ananna agrees to help the manticore escape from the island and return to her home. Ananna and Naji return once again to the high seas, traveling to the ends of the earth to break their curse.
I wasn’t sure whether to put this discussion in my review of The Assassin’s Curse or here, but I love the way that Cassandra Rose Clarke deals with gender in this series. On one hand, there’s enough gender equality that women have satisfying careers, even as pirates. On the other hand, Ananna and her friend Marjani pretend that Naji is the captain of the pirate ship because they don’t think they’d get a good crew if they knew they were sailing under a female captain (of course, Marjani and Ananna are calling all the shots and Naji has no clue what he’s doing). And then the two lady pirates eventually realize that they thought that their gender was more of an obstacle than it really was, and that the crew will take orders from them because they’re competent. The idea of sexism is more powerful than any character’s overt action, which seems a lot like the modern workforce. It’s the entrenched attitudes and biases that we don’t even think about that get in the way of ambition, and as Ananna and Marjani demonstrate, those are not insurmountable obstacles.
Oh, and Marjani’s a lesbian. There’s a big backstory about how she used to be a noblewoman and ended up a pirate, and forbidden love is a major part of it. You don’t even realize that she’s a lesbian for a long time after you’ve seen her, because she’s busy working on her ship and it’s not all that important, it’s just who she is. She’s treated like a normal character. You don’t realize that straight characters are straight until they show romantic interest in someone or their past comes up. I love when authors treat characters of other sexualities the same way and focus on their strength as a person rather than reducing their entire character to one trait.
Both The Assassin’s Curse and The Pirate’s Wish are full of win. I highly recommend them.
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2014/08/21/pirates-wish-cassandra-rose-clarke/
The Pirate’s Wish is the sequel to Cassandra Rose Clarke’s The Assassin’s Curse. Naji is an assassin, and he’s under a curse to protect the pirate Ananna because she accidentally saved his life while he was trying to kill her. He feels pain any time that she’s in danger, which is pretty much all the time, because Ananna is free-spirited and her childhood on a pirate ship gave her a warped definition of danger.
The previous book ends with Ananna and Naji marooned on a magical island where reality doesn’t stay put and even something as simple as getting a drink of water can be an adventure. Naji tells Ananna to stay home while he’s out fishing, but instead she goes into the woods to visit the wizard and meets a manticore instead. The manticore is a prissy princess, and is quite vain. She’s also my favorite character in the book. Manticores eat people, but Ongraygeeomryn (try saying that three times fast) promises not to eat Ananna because she doesn’t like female flesh, and she can’t eat Naji either because his curse would make him taste terrible. Instead, she and Ananna forge an unlikely friendship, and Ananna agrees to help the manticore escape from the island and return to her home. Ananna and Naji return once again to the high seas, traveling to the ends of the earth to break their curse.
I wasn’t sure whether to put this discussion in my review of The Assassin’s Curse or here, but I love the way that Cassandra Rose Clarke deals with gender in this series. On one hand, there’s enough gender equality that women have satisfying careers, even as pirates. On the other hand, Ananna and her friend Marjani pretend that Naji is the captain of the pirate ship because they don’t think they’d get a good crew if they knew they were sailing under a female captain (of course, Marjani and Ananna are calling all the shots and Naji has no clue what he’s doing). And then the two lady pirates eventually realize that they thought that their gender was more of an obstacle than it really was, and that the crew will take orders from them because they’re competent. The idea of sexism is more powerful than any character’s overt action, which seems a lot like the modern workforce. It’s the entrenched attitudes and biases that we don’t even think about that get in the way of ambition, and as Ananna and Marjani demonstrate, those are not insurmountable obstacles.
Oh, and Marjani’s a lesbian. There’s a big backstory about how she used to be a noblewoman and ended up a pirate, and forbidden love is a major part of it. You don’t even realize that she’s a lesbian for a long time after you’ve seen her, because she’s busy working on her ship and it’s not all that important, it’s just who she is. She’s treated like a normal character. You don’t realize that straight characters are straight until they show romantic interest in someone or their past comes up. I love when authors treat characters of other sexualities the same way and focus on their strength as a person rather than reducing their entire character to one trait.
Both The Assassin’s Curse and The Pirate’s Wish are full of win. I highly recommend them.
hans_cosy_corner's review
3.0
This series needed a third book. The first book had amazing pacing and left me wanting more, as did the first third of this book. unfortunately after that the book was incredibly rushed and sections that could have been amazing (the manticore homeland, the sunstones) was left feeling rushed, without detail. I liked that the love was unrequited for some time, and how emotionally charged the boon was, but it would have worked better if they'd actually talked about it afterwards rather than just suddenly being in love after he nearly died. They needed to talk about that and get it out in the open but instead it just...happened.
finally, the strangest and most rushed part of the book- the life from violence. a fantastic twist that I would have never guessed at all! However, this could have been an entire book in itself rather than a strange chapter that gave more questions than answers. if their world is like a month old, how do they have scholars? and halls? and potions? and seers...and wouldnt the curse have broken the moment it was made, rather than when the penny dropped? i wished so much that they'd needed to reclaim an item from there instead or something and we'd have gotten to explore this fantastic idea of a place...in a third book.
finally, the strangest and most rushed part of the book- the life from violence. a fantastic twist that I would have never guessed at all! However, this could have been an entire book in itself rather than a strange chapter that gave more questions than answers. if their world is like a month old, how do they have scholars? and halls? and potions? and seers...and wouldnt the curse have broken the moment it was made, rather than when the penny dropped? i wished so much that they'd needed to reclaim an item from there instead or something and we'd have gotten to explore this fantastic idea of a place...in a third book.
readbyjoey's review
5.0
This story had me hooked from the beginning to end. I loved following the characters on all their adventures and I would love to read more about these characters.
unicorn's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
waywardskyril's review against another edition
4.0
3.5
Well, I really wanted to give this a 4.5 or even a flat out 5, but there were some things in that just kept me from doing so.
Ok, let me start out this way.
The writing is very good. It flowed, and the narration by Ananna is brilliant and certainly ... piratical. But she uses too much swearing, especially the hard swearing. Yes, I understand, she IS a pirate, but instead of actually saying the words, just say that "she swore" because swearing is unnecessary. It detracted many points from my score.
Secondly... there's the references to things that nobody really needs to be reading about. It made me feel like the book should not be in the young adult section at all.
Lastly, I'll end on my favorites, Ananna and Naji. I love the characters. They're... alive! They have personalities and lives and they're fascinating and awesome! Now, Naji DID seem to act... strangely and surprisingly differenly after he woke. It was a rather uncharacteristic; however, I still loved them both, and Cassandra Clarke did a good job of making it believable.
I did very much enjoy this book. [Although the extreme cliff-hanger is incredibly anoying >.<] I'm looking forward to the next one... I just hope the author can cut some of the unnecessary things out.
Well, I really wanted to give this a 4.5 or even a flat out 5, but there were some things in that just kept me from doing so.
Ok, let me start out this way.
The writing is very good. It flowed, and the narration by Ananna is brilliant and certainly ... piratical. But she uses too much swearing, especially the hard swearing. Yes, I understand, she IS a pirate, but instead of actually saying the words, just say that "she swore" because swearing is unnecessary. It detracted many points from my score.
Secondly... there's the references to things that nobody really needs to be reading about. It made me feel like the book should not be in the young adult section at all.
Lastly, I'll end on my favorites, Ananna and Naji. I love the characters. They're... alive! They have personalities and lives and they're fascinating and awesome! Now, Naji DID seem to act... strangely and surprisingly differenly after he woke. It was a rather uncharacteristic; however, I still loved them both, and Cassandra Clarke did a good job of making it believable.
I did very much enjoy this book. [Although the extreme cliff-hanger is incredibly anoying >.<] I'm looking forward to the next one... I just hope the author can cut some of the unnecessary things out.
joliendelandsheer's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this one as well!
They aren't the most complex stories but they are just so enjoyable.
They aren't the most complex stories but they are just so enjoyable.