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tbwhite23's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, Death of parent, and Death
Moderate: Alcohol
filipacmiranda's review against another edition
3.25
When I picked up Fable, I was excited to read a book with pirates and a revenge plot. Despite hearing many good things about it (and enjoying it myself), the plot did not convince me fully.
Both the main character and the ship's crew were likeable enough. It was easy to empathise with Fable's story and understand her desire for retaliation. However, I constantly felt like the story was missing depth. Everything seemed to either happen too fast or take forever.
Young's writing is simple and easy to read, but the narrative could have benefited from a more descriptive style - particularly when the crew set foot in new places. Additionally, I found the tropes to be a little too predictable, which took away from the plot twists' surprise factor.
Despite the first instalment’s shortcomings, the ending captured my attention and I have added Namesake to my TBR.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Violence
Moderate: Abandonment, Grief, and Death
madalina0_0's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Violence, Kidnapping, Abandonment, and Death
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, and Misogyny
Minor: Sexual content
eleko's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.25
I did enjoy it but it's way too slow everything happens at the end but at the same time not that much happened... I liked Fable's character and the world is original
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Abandonment and Murder
paushaw's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-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? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder
Minor: Vomit and Kidnapping
ms_sarah621's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This was a fun adventure! I loved reading about the seas, the difficult times at sea, and the trading aspects. This is definitely a character novel, as the plot was very much in the background. Then, since this is a character novel, I wish the characters had been built up a little more. The biggest thing was don’t let anyone know what you love or care about. So everyone is very mysterious and you don’t learn much about the characters, more comes near the end. However, this made it hard for me because I felt like I needed to know more about them. Overall, this was a fun story, and I enjoyed my time reading it. Just could have been fleshed out more, may just be my personal preference.
Content Warnings
Minor: Abandonment, Death of parent, Murder, and Kidnapping
daylajane's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Minor: Child death and Death of parent
koistyfishy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-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? No
3.0
3 FABLE Stars ⭐
Spicy Level: 0.5🌶️/5 (𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘳/𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭)
I'm not going to lie and say that I was instantly hooked because it took about 45% of the audiobook and a big possibility and internal debate of whether I should DNF before this fishy was caught. I had seen so many raving reviews by people I normally tend to like the same books of...so I PERSVEIRED...
This book is a first-person POV that follows Fable. She is a girl who has been abandoned on a remote Island in the middle of The Narrows by her father, Saint - the most powerful trader the Narrows has ever seen. He left her so she could "learn how to survive". Fable is desperate to find a way off the Island to claim what is hers (as Saint promised). She uses her skills as a dredger (which means that she can hold her breath REALLY WELL as well as scavenge items from reefs/shipwrecks) and eventually trades her way onto the Marygold where the plot unfolds.
I think that there were three aspects that made this not the best for me.
The first one is it's a first-person P.O.V., but the number of times that the word FABLE is screamed, shouted, called, repeated and just said is 57 times!!! Having the narrator constantly going "Fable" in my ears - or what felt like constantly - drove me nuts...
The second is I feel like I could probably crew on a trader ship at this point with the amount of technical knowledge and information that this book has about ships and sailing a ship. It went really into detail, too much detail. I did not need so much description on basically how shipping worked, from the sails to the anchor, to layout, to terminology.
That then leads to the third aspect. Due to the monotonous descriptions, I would find myself in a lull in the audio - at no fault to Emma Lysy (Narrator). I would zone out and be bored by just too much ship talk that I would completely not pay attention to what I was listening to... which was really detrimental because I would then zone back in and not know WHAT THE FUCK was going on. I had to rewind chapters multiple times to find some point that I remembered listening to.
I AM SUPER happy though that I didn't give up because the last 60% of the book was wonderful! I do appreciate that Adrienne Young had clearly done a lot of research into worldbuilding, as she created a simple but rich and realistic trader network in a world with a slight hint of magic. The vibe is completely filled with adventure and if you love books about pirates this is right up your alley.
Fable was a little frustrating at times and I did get annoyed at her. However, she was alone, abandoned and unloved for 4 years while still a child. She has had a difficult life and has a tenacity to survive, so she will do anything she can to ensure she does.
The rest of the characters were really well fleshed out and I thought the relationship dynamics between everybody and the eventual "found-family" element was sweet. The back stories of each character, their motivations and reasoning were beautiful.
There is also a small hint of a love story between Fable and West (that feels a little instalovie) but it's not the main focus of the plot. The Helmsman is broody and mysterious but he really and truly cares for his crew and it shows in every action and decision he is forced to make. Their first kiss was just *chef's kiss*.
This is the second book I have read by Adrienne Young and I feel that she is an excellent storyteller! There is:
▶ Treasure seeking
▶ Adventure
▶ "Pirates"
▶ Found Family
▶ He Falls First
▶ Cliffhanger
While a boring start this made up for it in the end! I could see the world, I could smell the sea.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bolinda Audio for the Audiobook in exchange for a review.
All thoughts and feelings are my own.
Spicy Level: 0.5🌶️/5 (𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘋𝘰𝘰𝘳/𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭)
I'm not going to lie and say that I was instantly hooked because it took about 45% of the audiobook and a big possibility and internal debate of whether I should DNF before this fishy was caught. I had seen so many raving reviews by people I normally tend to like the same books of...so I PERSVEIRED...
This book is a first-person POV that follows Fable. She is a girl who has been abandoned on a remote Island in the middle of The Narrows by her father, Saint - the most powerful trader the Narrows has ever seen. He left her so she could "learn how to survive". Fable is desperate to find a way off the Island to claim what is hers (as Saint promised). She uses her skills as a dredger (which means that she can hold her breath REALLY WELL as well as scavenge items from reefs/shipwrecks) and eventually trades her way onto the Marygold where the plot unfolds.
I think that there were three aspects that made this not the best for me.
The first one is it's a first-person P.O.V., but the number of times that the word FABLE is screamed, shouted, called, repeated and just said is 57 times!!! Having the narrator constantly going "Fable" in my ears - or what felt like constantly - drove me nuts...
The second is I feel like I could probably crew on a trader ship at this point with the amount of technical knowledge and information that this book has about ships and sailing a ship. It went really into detail, too much detail. I did not need so much description on basically how shipping worked, from the sails to the anchor, to layout, to terminology.
That then leads to the third aspect. Due to the monotonous descriptions, I would find myself in a lull in the audio - at no fault to Emma Lysy (Narrator). I would zone out and be bored by just too much ship talk that I would completely not pay attention to what I was listening to... which was really detrimental because I would then zone back in and not know WHAT THE FUCK was going on. I had to rewind chapters multiple times to find some point that I remembered listening to.
I AM SUPER happy though that I didn't give up because the last 60% of the book was wonderful! I do appreciate that Adrienne Young had clearly done a lot of research into worldbuilding, as she created a simple but rich and realistic trader network in a world with a slight hint of magic. The vibe is completely filled with adventure and if you love books about pirates this is right up your alley.
Fable was a little frustrating at times and I did get annoyed at her. However, she was alone, abandoned and unloved for 4 years while still a child. She has had a difficult life and has a tenacity to survive, so she will do anything she can to ensure she does.
The rest of the characters were really well fleshed out and I thought the relationship dynamics between everybody and the eventual "found-family" element was sweet. The back stories of each character, their motivations and reasoning were beautiful.
There is also a small hint of a love story between Fable and West (that feels a little instalovie) but it's not the main focus of the plot. The Helmsman is broody and mysterious but he really and truly cares for his crew and it shows in every action and decision he is forced to make. Their first kiss was just *chef's kiss*.
This is the second book I have read by Adrienne Young and I feel that she is an excellent storyteller! There is:
▶ Treasure seeking
▶ Adventure
▶ "Pirates"
▶ Found Family
▶ He Falls First
▶ Cliffhanger
While a boring start this made up for it in the end! I could see the world, I could smell the sea.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bolinda Audio for the Audiobook in exchange for a review.
All thoughts and feelings are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death of parent, and Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Vomit, Medical content, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Blood, and Alcohol
nicolewhopickedthisbook's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.5
I did enjoy this book, couple things could’ve been fleshed out or more detail added. Like the whole “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you” quote from West… Uhhh really? Could've fooled me. There were no longing looks, no tension, no angst then all of a sudden they’re kissing?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment and Death of parent
Moderate: Violence
chaptertraveller's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I loved this book so much more than I expected! I thought it would just be an okay YA pirate-themes story akin to Daughter of the Pirate King (which I didn't love) but thought I'd give the audiobook a go after finding it availalbe on Libby as per Cari Can Read's recommendation.
I FLEW through it, finishing it in two days and it was so so much fun. I love the world set-up of the Narrows and the trader/dredger politics; the stakes felt perfect for the decisions being made, and the characters were great. I loved Fable's POV and seeing this world through her eyes, the descriptions of all the places felt imaginative and unique and like I could picture each one and the way we feel her experiences especially whilst underwater were awesome. We didn't get tons of depth to the secondary characters, and this book certainly serves as a set-up for the sequel, but I loved it and felt it really easy to immerse into and learn about this pirate-like world of gemstones and islands.
I FLEW through it, finishing it in two days and it was so so much fun. I love the world set-up of the Narrows and the trader/dredger politics; the stakes felt perfect for the decisions being made, and the characters were great. I loved Fable's POV and seeing this world through her eyes, the descriptions of all the places felt imaginative and unique and like I could picture each one and the way we feel her experiences especially whilst underwater were awesome. We didn't get tons of depth to the secondary characters, and this book certainly serves as a set-up for the sequel, but I loved it and felt it really easy to immerse into and learn about this pirate-like world of gemstones and islands.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment and Death of parent