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serrendipity's review against another edition
4.0
Okay. If I had rated this book at 98%, I probably would have given it 4 stars. I may still give it 4 stars. I don't know. We'll see how I feel after hashing this all out. But that last 2% of the book, man....
*deep breath*
Here's the thing: I thought this was a really good book. Like, "I'll read just one more chapter and then suddenly it's 2am" good.
Does that mean I think it's a good Pandemic Read? Not for me, no.
There's a line in the book...:
"Fear danced silently in my blood, its invisible tentacles wrapping around me and squeezing."
This was basically me the *entire* time I was reading. Young did an excellent job building tension -- not suspense, there's a difference -- that made my stomach roil with anxiety. From the opening chapters of the book -- with Fable's tangle with Koy and her escape off Jeval -- Young nailed that anxiety-inducing uncertainty.
But during a pandemic (and right before college campuses open back up) was perhaps not the best time to be reading a story that literally made my heart race.
Still, I was invested.
✔︎ -- No Love Triangle! You know that's a bonus for me. There was some misdirection early on, but thankfully, that's all it was. (And I predicted the "correct" direction correctly, so brownie point for me.)
✔︎ -- Diversity! Sort of. Our protagonist is still a white female, but there are two characters -- Auster and Paj -- who are in a gay, interracial relationship. They don't necessarily have their own story independent of the main plot, but I appreciated the way that Young presented their relationship. That is, it's established early on that love is a weakness and has no place on the trading ships -- and when it does, it doesn't end well. So Auster and Paj's relationship is "hidden" not because they're gay, but because all relationships on ships are hidden. If people know what you care about, they use it against you.
✔︎ -- The world-building. Even though they're traders by nature, the characters in this book had a sort of pirate-vibe -- maybe this was Young's way of telling a pirate story without the associated connotations of pillaging, plundering, raping, etc. There's a clear system and hierarchy in place -- there wasn't a map in my ARC, and I really hope there's a map in the published book -- with the guild-masters and the rings and everything. It's not a very rosy life for anyone, it seems, but maybe that's reserved for Bastian? I read some reviews that weren't fond of the gem-sage concept, or didn't think it was well-developed/executed, and I have to disagree. My hunch is that Young gave us what we needed to know to follow the plot of this book, and it's going to come back into play in the sequel(s). More on my hypothesis below.
✔︎ -- The pacing. Especially compared to the last book I read, the pacing was ON POINT here. There was one part about 70% through, where they were getting new sails, where it hit a bit of a snag, but I thought Young's pacing was excellent. Maybe a bit too fast in some cases...like a stone skipping on water, we jumped over chunks of time to keep the action moving. (I'm thinking of near the end, when Fable and West are dredging...they're underwater and then POOF! Everything's loaded on the ship and we're back in Dern. Wait--what? Same with offloading the cargo at the end -- if it's enough cargo to get them free, that happened very quickly.)
Which, yes. It doesn't make sense to spend a chapter detailing them getting treasure off a sunken ship if it's all going to end well. But...Young's knowledge of sailing/ship stuff was almost on a Moby Dick level. (Okay, not quite, because that would be an insult. Melville spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time with the whaling stuff.) But the analogy stands: there's a lot of description about sailing and ship jobs, so it was a little jarring to skip the "retrieving buried treasure" part, since so much attention had been paid to the other details.
*shrug* Not a big deal.
Okay. Let's get to some of the spoilery stuff.
✘ -- I had a tricky time pinning down Fable's age. I know she's 17/18, but "is older than her years" because she was abandoned, Survivor-style, on a terrible island for four years. (No one in this world seems to live a life of comfort...where are all these gems going? Who funds the money? I get that we're supposed to think it's Bastian and maybe that's where the rich, happy people live, because there is not a lot of joy in this world.) Point is--sometimes she acted like a teenager, impulsively jumping to conclusions, rebelling against orders; and other times she seemed mature and wise, like at the end with Saint, in the tavern. Which is better than the alternative, where characters (and the plot) are driven entirely by negative emotions. (Someone is always angry, yelling at someone, lashing out...I'm finding that to be a pet peeve of mine these days.)
✘ -- This is relatively minor, but I was bothered by the fact that she goes to such great lengths to prove she's NOT A THIEF -- no, really; she literally almost drowns in a very Moana-moment where's pinned in some coral -- aaaand then turns around and steals from the ship. *facepalm* Girl. Not your best look.
✘ -- This is also a spoilery point but goes back to my point about Fable's age. Her reaction to Saint's revelations...confuse me. First, she's painted him as this callous, cruel "pirate king," with Clove being the paternal figure. But, when she goes to see him, he (1) keeps his word (I thought for sure he was going to break his promise and laugh in her face, because pirate king.); (2) basically sets her up for life (if she can get the treasure); and (3) reveals that he's not a total asshat and deadbeat as he hired West to basically look after her.
And Fable gets pissed because she feels she didn't really earn her survival....? I guess? First, she gets over this pretty quickly, so it doesn't seem to be *too* much of an issue for her and is more of a convenient reaction to build tension between them. Second, she's looking for proof that her father cares for her, and SHE GETS IT. I know she is still a teenager, so perspective, but Saint was not a monster IMHO. I'm not saying he's a...."saint" (oh, terrible pun), but he was clearly affected by Isolde's death (and by "affected" I mean "broken") so he did what he could to protect his daughter. Again, not saying it's the right call, but it doesn't seem like there was a pleasant place he could send his daughter to anywhere in this world so....
✘ -- Okay. Last thing that bugged the crap out of me. Like I said -- 98% of the way through, this was 4.5 star book for me. But then the end. I knew "something" was coming, because things go off relatively smoothly for the last 10-15%, but it doesn't feel like the "end."
And once Fable left the boat, by herself, I knew what was going to happen.
Yes, she was going to get the ring back from the pawn shop.
And yes, she was going to meet Zola. (Because didn't Saint tell her, in a clear instance of foreshadowing, that if she ever got in trouble with Zola, to come straight to him, Saint?)
And then they kidnapped her.
And it just felt like the ending of Six of Crows where they figure out that Kaz cares for Inej and they kidnap her. And as much as I LOVED Six of Crows, the ending bothered me because a strong, kick-ass female character got kidnapped like a princess in a fairy-tale and became a damsel in distress.
WHY?!?!!
So, yeah. That's where I'm at.
Final Thoughts:
1--Soap Opera Rules apply here. If you don't see a body, or if someone says someone else is "gone" (and not "dead") -- they're not dead.
2--OBVIOUSLY the character of Holland is important and will probably be a major player in the sequel. You don't just drop breadcrumbs like that and leave them there to mold. I think this is why I'm okay with the amount of info we got about gem sages. If I remember correctly, these are they key bits of info for the sequel:
--Being a Gem Sage is a hereditary thing: Fable got it from Isolde, who clearly got it from her parents.
--(Is it matriarchal? IDK.)
--Holland is a Gem Sage (I think...) and this is how she made her fortune.
--Zola fled Bastian because he pissed off Holland.
--Isolde also fled Bastian because...something.
--Zola knows Isolde because Fable "reminds him of someone."
My hypothesis? Perhaps Isolde and Holland are related -- mother/daughter? -- and Zola is taking Fable to Bastian to appease Holland by giving her her granddaughter. And Holland will use Fable as leverage against Saint? IDK.
But maybe we'll finally see some happy people in Bastian. Because the only places we've seen in this world have been very bleak -- and if there's that much money/gems floating around, someone's got to be enjoying it.
**I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
*deep breath*
Here's the thing: I thought this was a really good book. Like, "I'll read just one more chapter and then suddenly it's 2am" good.
Does that mean I think it's a good Pandemic Read? Not for me, no.
There's a line in the book...:
"Fear danced silently in my blood, its invisible tentacles wrapping around me and squeezing."
This was basically me the *entire* time I was reading. Young did an excellent job building tension -- not suspense, there's a difference -- that made my stomach roil with anxiety. From the opening chapters of the book -- with Fable's tangle with Koy and her escape off Jeval -- Young nailed that anxiety-inducing uncertainty.
But during a pandemic (and right before college campuses open back up) was perhaps not the best time to be reading a story that literally made my heart race.
Still, I was invested.
✔︎ -- No Love Triangle! You know that's a bonus for me. There was some misdirection early on, but thankfully, that's all it was. (And I predicted the "correct" direction correctly, so brownie point for me.)
✔︎ -- Diversity! Sort of. Our protagonist is still a white female, but there are two characters -- Auster and Paj -- who are in a gay, interracial relationship. They don't necessarily have their own story independent of the main plot, but I appreciated the way that Young presented their relationship. That is, it's established early on that love is a weakness and has no place on the trading ships -- and when it does, it doesn't end well. So Auster and Paj's relationship is "hidden" not because they're gay, but because all relationships on ships are hidden. If people know what you care about, they use it against you.
✔︎ -- The world-building. Even though they're traders by nature, the characters in this book had a sort of pirate-vibe -- maybe this was Young's way of telling a pirate story without the associated connotations of pillaging, plundering, raping, etc. There's a clear system and hierarchy in place -- there wasn't a map in my ARC, and I really hope there's a map in the published book -- with the guild-masters and the rings and everything. It's not a very rosy life for anyone, it seems, but maybe that's reserved for Bastian? I read some reviews that weren't fond of the gem-sage concept, or didn't think it was well-developed/executed, and I have to disagree. My hunch is that Young gave us what we needed to know to follow the plot of this book, and it's going to come back into play in the sequel(s). More on my hypothesis below.
✔︎ -- The pacing. Especially compared to the last book I read, the pacing was ON POINT here. There was one part about 70% through, where they were getting new sails, where it hit a bit of a snag, but I thought Young's pacing was excellent. Maybe a bit too fast in some cases...like a stone skipping on water, we jumped over chunks of time to keep the action moving. (I'm thinking of near the end, when Fable and West are dredging...they're underwater and then POOF! Everything's loaded on the ship and we're back in Dern. Wait--what? Same with offloading the cargo at the end -- if it's enough cargo to get them free, that happened very quickly.)
Which, yes. It doesn't make sense to spend a chapter detailing them getting treasure off a sunken ship if it's all going to end well. But...Young's knowledge of sailing/ship stuff was almost on a Moby Dick level. (Okay, not quite, because that would be an insult. Melville spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time with the whaling stuff.) But the analogy stands: there's a lot of description about sailing and ship jobs, so it was a little jarring to skip the "retrieving buried treasure" part, since so much attention had been paid to the other details.
*shrug* Not a big deal.
Okay. Let's get to some of the spoilery stuff.
✘ -- I had a tricky time pinning down Fable's age. I know she's 17/18, but "is older than her years" because she was abandoned, Survivor-style, on a terrible island for four years. (No one in this world seems to live a life of comfort...where are all these gems going? Who funds the money? I get that we're supposed to think it's Bastian and maybe that's where the rich, happy people live, because there is not a lot of joy in this world.) Point is--sometimes she acted like a teenager, impulsively jumping to conclusions, rebelling against orders; and other times she seemed mature and wise, like at the end with Saint, in the tavern. Which is better than the alternative, where characters (and the plot) are driven entirely by negative emotions. (Someone is always angry, yelling at someone, lashing out...I'm finding that to be a pet peeve of mine these days.)
✘ -- This is relatively minor, but I was bothered by the fact that she goes to such great lengths to prove she's NOT A THIEF -- no, really; she literally almost drowns in a very Moana-moment where's pinned in some coral -- aaaand then turns around and steals from the ship. *facepalm* Girl. Not your best look.
✘ -- This is also a spoilery point but goes back to my point about Fable's age. Her reaction to Saint's revelations...confuse me. First, she's painted him as this callous, cruel "pirate king," with Clove being the paternal figure. But, when she goes to see him, he (1) keeps his word (I thought for sure he was going to break his promise and laugh in her face, because pirate king.); (2) basically sets her up for life (if she can get the treasure); and (3) reveals that he's not a total asshat and deadbeat as he hired West to basically look after her.
And Fable gets pissed because she feels she didn't really earn her survival....? I guess? First, she gets over this pretty quickly, so it doesn't seem to be *too* much of an issue for her and is more of a convenient reaction to build tension between them. Second, she's looking for proof that her father cares for her, and SHE GETS IT. I know she is still a teenager, so perspective, but Saint was not a monster IMHO. I'm not saying he's a...."saint" (oh, terrible pun), but he was clearly affected by Isolde's death (and by "affected" I mean "broken") so he did what he could to protect his daughter. Again, not saying it's the right call, but it doesn't seem like there was a pleasant place he could send his daughter to anywhere in this world so....
✘ -- Okay. Last thing that bugged the crap out of me. Like I said -- 98% of the way through, this was 4.5 star book for me. But then the end. I knew "something" was coming, because things go off relatively smoothly for the last 10-15%, but it doesn't feel like the "end."
And once Fable left the boat, by herself, I knew what was going to happen.
Yes, she was going to get the ring back from the pawn shop.
And yes, she was going to meet Zola. (Because didn't Saint tell her, in a clear instance of foreshadowing, that if she ever got in trouble with Zola, to come straight to him, Saint?)
And then they kidnapped her.
And it just felt like the ending of Six of Crows where they figure out that Kaz cares for Inej and they kidnap her. And as much as I LOVED Six of Crows, the ending bothered me because a strong, kick-ass female character got kidnapped like a princess in a fairy-tale and became a damsel in distress.
WHY?!?!!
So, yeah. That's where I'm at.
Final Thoughts:
1--Soap Opera Rules apply here. If you don't see a body, or if someone says someone else is "gone" (and not "dead") -- they're not dead.
2--OBVIOUSLY the character of Holland is important and will probably be a major player in the sequel. You don't just drop breadcrumbs like that and leave them there to mold. I think this is why I'm okay with the amount of info we got about gem sages. If I remember correctly, these are they key bits of info for the sequel:
--Being a Gem Sage is a hereditary thing: Fable got it from Isolde, who clearly got it from her parents.
--(Is it matriarchal? IDK.)
--Holland is a Gem Sage (I think...) and this is how she made her fortune.
--Zola fled Bastian because he pissed off Holland.
--Isolde also fled Bastian because...something.
--Zola knows Isolde because Fable "reminds him of someone."
My hypothesis? Perhaps Isolde and Holland are related -- mother/daughter? -- and Zola is taking Fable to Bastian to appease Holland by giving her her granddaughter. And Holland will use Fable as leverage against Saint? IDK.
But maybe we'll finally see some happy people in Bastian. Because the only places we've seen in this world have been very bleak -- and if there's that much money/gems floating around, someone's got to be enjoying it.
**I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
the_et's review against another edition
4.0
loved it!! my only reason for not doing 5 is that there wasn’t much surprise in the story line for me. like a lot of the plot felt predictable. although i will say the kiss did feel a little bit random
nataliewarren's review against another edition
2.0
soooo disappointing. I knew it was YA going in but the pacing was horrific and every single character was pretty monotone and annoying. I won’t be reading the next one :/ bonus points for fun tropical pirate vibes as I read this on a beach vacation
breakaway71's review against another edition
5.0
This is dark and gritty and full of ships and survival and great characters and a found family happening in slow stages and I just have a lot of feels but AAAAHHHH CLIFFHANGER WHYYYYYYY
magspie's review against another edition
3.0
Tbh, lots of extra details about scenery or very specific things that weren't important. Nothing super wild happened. Just a story of a girl finding passage on a ship. Will I read the next one? Maybe.
daisiesonjupiter's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this one! I can’t wait to read the next but I have a few others to catch up on and read first. It was a really enjoyable story and I felt like I was there among the crew at sea.
aimeenicole_k's review against another edition
5.0
Adrienne Young quickly became one of my favorite authors when I read Sky in the Deep and Fable has only made me love her more. I loved this book. I love Fable and West and the rest of the crew. The world building is fantastic and I found myself so invested in it that I reached the end without knowing it (ebook) and had a mini heart attack because it was over and I NEED to know what's next!! Moving on the the 2nd book ASAP
soulakosti's review against another edition
4.0
I definitely picked this one up for the ✨fabulous✨ cover, but also because I’m obsessed with pirates. I enjoyed Fable’s story, but most of the time felt like something was missing from it. I wanted Fable to be a bit more badass (I mean she did survive in a dangerous island on her own where she found enemies in every corner). I just felt the story lacked some action and that the heroine didn’t reach her full potential.
burtini's review against another edition
5.0
I’m always a little nervous to read a hyped book, entering it with high expectations, but Fable definitely deserves it’s hype! This book is incredible, with a badass, vulnerable female protagonist, a sexy love interest who sizzles on the page (I love him!!!! It may have helped that I pictured him as Cary Elwes in Princess Bride throughout the book :D)), a complex wonderful array of characters you grow to love very quickly,, great world building and the plot isn’t convoluted but keeps you interested throughout.
Adrienne Young’s books have always impressed me and she is brilliant at shaping female led empowering stories, Skyrim the Deep and The Girl the Sea Gave Back, are among my favourites, her writing is beautiful and in each book she creates a wonderful world for you to step in, with history, rules and culture that she’s really dedicated to. I’ve hit a bit of a YA reading slump this year, feeling dissatisfied quite a bit but but this was definitely the book I needed to bring me back. As soon as I finished Fable, I ordered a copy for my shelf and the sequel, Namesake. This book wasn’t mindless escapism but an exciting, layered adventure with heart and I can’t wait to come back to Fable, West, Willa in particular, thank you NetGalley for the early copy!
Adrienne Young’s books have always impressed me and she is brilliant at shaping female led empowering stories, Skyrim the Deep and The Girl the Sea Gave Back, are among my favourites, her writing is beautiful and in each book she creates a wonderful world for you to step in, with history, rules and culture that she’s really dedicated to. I’ve hit a bit of a YA reading slump this year, feeling dissatisfied quite a bit but but this was definitely the book I needed to bring me back. As soon as I finished Fable, I ordered a copy for my shelf and the sequel, Namesake. This book wasn’t mindless escapism but an exciting, layered adventure with heart and I can’t wait to come back to Fable, West, Willa in particular, thank you NetGalley for the early copy!