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337 reviews for:

Island Queen

Vanessa Riley

3.89 AVERAGE

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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: Yes
emotional informative sad slow-paced
challenging slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

After reading the book I still have no better understanding of who Dotty was as a person or why she did the things she did the way she did. The plot was like pins on timeline of major life points with no real explanation or understanding of the day to day. What I did learn of her made her seem unlikable, selfish, and hypocritical. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
glauxgirl's profile picture

glauxgirl's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 40%

I’m more interested in how Dolly builds a business empire from the ground up, but it’s taking too long to get there. It’s mostly suitors and children at the 40% mark.

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Was 3.5 stars but rounded down to 3
challenging emotional informative medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Amazing subject and I really enjoyed the writing style, Dorothy's voice felt very honest and was so well characterized. I learned a lot of historical context about slavery and life in the 18th century Caribbean that I hadn't known before. I read another review that said everything in the book was not enough and too much at the same time, which rang true for me. I got a little lost sometimes with the sheer number of characters, but wanted to know more about everyone and everything thing at once. I wish that the pacing was a bit more consistent (more time spent in the later years in particular) and that there fewer intimate scenes as they got a little repetitive.

hopemercy's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH

didn't want to read about slavery at the time
challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced
fast-paced