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thelaurasaurus's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
A bit of a mess. There was too much crammed in for a book of this length. While it's interesting to see some diversity which you wouldn't normally expect from a novel set in the 18th century, there are essentially two characters doing the heavy lifting to make this happen.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Incest, Rape, Death, Racism, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Abandonment, Suicide, Death of parent, and Animal death
georgie_mb's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Pr Product as part of Canongate’s February readalong
This started out with a really good premise, being a historical thriller about smugglers with a strong yet flawed female lead, however it didn’t grip me as much as I wanted it to.
Somethings were drawn out too long, I didn’t really feel connected to any of the characters or their reasonings. The ending definitely picked up but it wasn’t enough to give it a huge boost in my rating.
I originally had an issue with the opening letter statement about the fact that the author was a man writing a woman’s story as it ended up tainting parts of the storytelling for me, but the ending cleared that up a bit. I do think it was unnecessary and a bit forced.
This started out with a really good premise, being a historical thriller about smugglers with a strong yet flawed female lead, however it didn’t grip me as much as I wanted it to.
Somethings were drawn out too long, I didn’t really feel connected to any of the characters or their reasonings. The ending definitely picked up but it wasn’t enough to give it a huge boost in my rating.
I originally had an issue with the opening letter statement about the fact that the author was a man writing a woman’s story as it ended up tainting parts of the storytelling for me, but the ending cleared that up a bit. I do think it was unnecessary and a bit forced.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Torture, Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Body horror, Colonisation, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Incest, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual content, Violence, and War
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