AMAZING AND IM MAD THIS GOT RELEASED A FEW WEEKS AGO SO I HAVE TO WAIT LONGER FOR THE SEQUEL

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My opinion was not affected by the free copy.

I really need to learn and stop being suckered in by taglines promising a retelling of classic stories. Look, if you're going to be just another revenge story, that's fine. But don't claim to be a gender-swap of Count of Monte Cristo unless you intend to be a little more like that book. I think if he were real, the actual count would be embarrassed by Amaya.

The stories are kind of similar. Amaya (or Silverfish) is on this debtors' prison boat and escapes vowing revenge on the man who kept her as a slave for all those years. She later dresses up like a countess in order to get close to those responsible for her being on that boat. But here's the difference: she has no idea what she's doing. Yeah, someone else has to teach her about combat and points her to who she should kill. More than that, the guys she's exacting revenge on are all still doing shady things and being generally terrible people, where with Cristo there were more shades of gray. There's a lot more manipulation going on in Cristo than here... or at least in Cristo, he's the one doing the manipulating. Like I said, Amaya doesn't seem to know what she's doing and she makes no effort to learn the inner workings of these people she's supposed to take revenge on.

Oh, and there's a sort-of romance, too. Because God forbid we have a story featuring a female lead without a love story stuck in there as well. Have it be like Romeo and Juliet where the guy she's interested in is the son of one of the men she wants revenge on, and her only moral quandary is because of that relationship and not because maybe some of these guys have turned away from their shady pasts. The love interest is your generic gambler with a heart of gold who only wants to help his sick sister... because yeah, we also need a side-plot about some weird disease going around.

Ignoring that this is being advertised as a Monte Cristo re-telling, it's still pretty disappointing as far as a vengeance plot goes. We want our main character to be the one manipulating, planning, and exacting vengeance on her enemies. We want her to be in control of the situation. We don't want some guy telling her what to do or teaching her things. We don't want her so clueless that she ends up being the one manipulated. We definitely don't want you to take away moral dilemmas by having her victims be evil/definitely doing shady things in the present.

I like to finish with things I liked about the book, but I can't really think of anything. I guess Cayo is interesting enough, and I would've liked following him and Romara's story if that pesky romance hadn't found its way in. Amaya even started off interesting as being in this cut-throat prison boat, but she so quickly gets lost in someone else's plan for revenge that she ends up bland. Even taking Cristo out of the equation and judging it as its own revenge story, I don't think this was especially strong.

I enjoyed this book! It was well written and I believe the character development was good. For me it lacked a spark, something that makes me want more. I might read book 2 but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Never having read the Count of Monte Cristo, the premise was intriguing, and I love seafaring stories and island settings with a diverse cast of characters, so I had to read this.

Unfortunately, it was all surface-level. And it was such a drag to read. Aside from the forceful liberal propaganda being shoved down our throats that adds nothing to the plot (it's like in every YA book now for "diversity and inclusivity"