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alouette 's review for:
The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
by Mackenzi Lee
adventurous
lighthearted
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5 stars- —-> 2.5 stars after edit
*imported from goodreads, contains spoilers*
It’s hard for me to articulate my thoughts on this one, but essentially I thought the plot weak and had little emotional attatchment in it (Johanna’s big thing that she must sacrifice the map for is... her dog? I understand that she is soft compared to Felicity but the bond between her and her dog is not something that’s developed... it’s there for a few pages then we move onto the real adventure. Whereas in the last book if there had been a time where Monty was being blackmailed because it was, say, Felicity being threatened, then it pulls at the heartstrings more).
Anyways, there was also the pacing- the book took so long to start on the main adventure, and the action was separated by stretches of travelling that was described in a few paragraphs, rendering me confused and bored. It was also separated by Felcity’s frequent “inner empowerment monologues” which, don’t get me wrong, are a great message, but it felt like the author only wrote those parts to remind themself what Felicity’s character was to be like. And, the way Felicity had grown by the end didn’t sit right with me, nor did the way she decided to go with Sim for a year or to write a letter to Callum of all people.
This all led to a rather anticlimactic ending- I felt no tension by the end of the book, because this clearly wasn’t the type of book where their ship was going to sink, obviously they would win somehow. And when a dragon (again, no emotional attachment, just “okay cool a dragon it’s not even anything to do with that baby dragon it’s just... some random dragon”) was the one who saved them all and killed hundreds of people... that was that. Done. At this point I was just reading because I hate DNFing.
The things I did like included Johanna- despite my criticism of her dog dilemma, she was genuinely a good character and more interesting to me than Felicity. Sim was cool as well, with her inner conflict at the end of siding with the girls or staying loyal to her dad being perhaps the most interesting part of that third act. And the amount of research that went into this book was fabulous. So while I think I preferred the first book a lot more, shoutout to Ms. Lee for writing this, because it was clearly written with love for the subject matter.
(Edit: Also the fact that the two white women think they have the right to study the dragons in the name of “research” and “its potential is being wasted”, the fact they want to disturb the peace that the POC pirates have with the dragons gives off a stench... to me it’s reminiscent of the colonization of Canada and the way settlers destroyed the peace Aboriginal peoples had with nature... that may be a bit of a reach but still, Johanna and Felicity’s motivations there are scary when you give it some thought. I get that it was a thing of the time period but Felicity is supposed to be a progressive character, and it’s not written to be intentional sooooo.... it stinks.)
*imported from goodreads, contains spoilers*
It’s hard for me to articulate my thoughts on this one, but essentially I thought the plot weak and had little emotional attatchment in it (Johanna’s big thing that she must sacrifice the map for is... her dog? I understand that she is soft compared to Felicity but the bond between her and her dog is not something that’s developed... it’s there for a few pages then we move onto the real adventure. Whereas in the last book if there had been a time where Monty was being blackmailed because it was, say, Felicity being threatened, then it pulls at the heartstrings more).
Anyways, there was also the pacing- the book took so long to start on the main adventure, and the action was separated by stretches of travelling that was described in a few paragraphs, rendering me confused and bored. It was also separated by Felcity’s frequent “inner empowerment monologues” which, don’t get me wrong, are a great message, but it felt like the author only wrote those parts to remind themself what Felicity’s character was to be like. And, the way Felicity had grown by the end didn’t sit right with me, nor did the way she decided to go with Sim for a year or to write a letter to Callum of all people.
This all led to a rather anticlimactic ending- I felt no tension by the end of the book, because this clearly wasn’t the type of book where their ship was going to sink, obviously they would win somehow. And when a dragon (again, no emotional attachment, just “okay cool a dragon it’s not even anything to do with that baby dragon it’s just... some random dragon”) was the one who saved them all and killed hundreds of people... that was that. Done. At this point I was just reading because I hate DNFing.
The things I did like included Johanna- despite my criticism of her dog dilemma, she was genuinely a good character and more interesting to me than Felicity. Sim was cool as well, with her inner conflict at the end of siding with the girls or staying loyal to her dad being perhaps the most interesting part of that third act. And the amount of research that went into this book was fabulous. So while I think I preferred the first book a lot more, shoutout to Ms. Lee for writing this, because it was clearly written with love for the subject matter.
(Edit: Also the fact that the two white women think they have the right to study the dragons in the name of “research” and “its potential is being wasted”, the fact they want to disturb the peace that the POC pirates have with the dragons gives off a stench... to me it’s reminiscent of the colonization of Canada and the way settlers destroyed the peace Aboriginal peoples had with nature... that may be a bit of a reach but still, Johanna and Felicity’s motivations there are scary when you give it some thought. I get that it was a thing of the time period but Felicity is supposed to be a progressive character, and it’s not written to be intentional sooooo.... it stinks.)