To be fair, it’s 1.5 cause I was slightly interested in one or two chapters.
And I’m using the word VERY in every sentence cause I’m feeling -here it comes- very indignant.
Just very briefly I would like to say that the whole book felt like a shoujo manga. Anyone familiar with those Japanese comic books in that specific genre? Yes.
How?
You know how in those shoujo mangas the lines and details on their faces are very vague and they somewhat all look the same? The background is drawn minimally or not drawn at all?
It felt the same with this book. Very immature. Very cartoonish. Very void plot wise.
The characters are all the same if anything, very bland, very normal, trying so hard emit any badassery that feels unnatural and extremely forced. The entire crew felt like something that came out of One Piece excluding any background/ real depth for us to care for them.
And all Elian (the male antagonist) does is keep on bragging on how powerful, amazing, free, close, yada yada yada they are but I see NONE of the described! And IF, by any chance, the dialogue among these “crew” members written in text is a sneak peek of their bond then, spare no more, I’m not interested at all.
And the author clearly has no idea what being a pirate means.
Or a royalty.
Or a siren.
Or a character with dimensions and being composed of layers and layers like an onion (see what I did there?)
Or any of the sort.
And why is Elian SO opposed to being a king? I don’t get it. There isn’t any valid reason except him being a spoiled brat. Why start a pirate line? Why? What happened that scarred him so bad for him to find sanctuary in such barbarous concept that is Pirates? (not applied on his “crew”). And HOW did it all start? When? W-w-w-w———
And why is Lira very submissive to her mother like that? Yes she’s awful, but why is her mother just awful? Is there no deeper dark scene of her being remotely fearful that Lira submits in such fright and blindly follows? I wanted a (very) gruesome scene not a trail of Little Mermaid’s Sebastian orchestra’s members being devoured by the tentacle lady as she summons her daughter.
Let’s not get into the writing... I mean, it had SOME phrases that felt nice. Some. But the metaphors were just crushing the fantasy.
“- It feels like silk. Maybe because it is silk.” ?????????????????????????
I mean, what are we supposed to conclude from that? That the character is stupid or that they have never felt or owned a silk cloth before?
And the banter between the two main characters? It made me weep. Legit tears. And my eyes rolled 360 degrees horizontally and vertically (don’t Algebratise/Physics me).
Bottom line: the actual problem of this book is that the content claims to be so many things, the characters label themselves as many things but there’re no evidence, no proof, no details, just statements, and statements, and oh, more repeated statements.
I used to love reading shoujo just to waste time when I’m heavily pressured. Fast forward- Being a mother that is highly stressed again; I thought I’d pick up a good YA book.
Guess I was wrong.
Overall? Not recommended.
P.S. I have no idea how to manipulate the fonts in italic and in bold.
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