Although this ended super quickly(I was..not a fan of that lol), overall, I loved this book! Mar’s various friends and companions made for a colorful cast of characters. I actually liked the romance, maybe it was because I was listening to the audiobook as well(and it takes me 4-5x as longer to finish a book like that), but I felt that there was enough time for Bas and Mar to like..develop a hesitant alliance and then a friendship. Mar’s opinion of him didn’t totally do a 180 immediately too, he had a horrible first impression lmao 

maybe trying to both kickstart an immediate friendship and present yourself as a noble person/rescuer when someone basically died and got brought back is NOT a good idea, which, granted none of us know the dying bit until Mar realized El Diablo accidentally made them immortal at the end of the book but they KNOW THET DROWNED HAFISNFK.

But, 120 or so pages into the book there was a sweet little moment of vulnerability (Mar’s first instance of that with the La Ana crew, really) that kinda kicked things off from there in regards to those two.

Dami was so fun!! I thought one of their schemes was a little convoluted though, but other than that I absolutely ate up their moral ambiguity and snarky banter with Mar. (Color me biased though, I LOVE gender-fluid shapeshifter characters.) El Diablo, the big bad, went in with a bang and had a spectacular introduction that cemented the stakes of the story, and he remained a solid threat for basically the whole time! Probably one of my favorite YA villains I’ve read about, even if I have a couple of questions about him after the end. As for the other crew characters, not much to say about them due to limited on-page time, but I don’t have anything bad to say about them. (Tito has comforting uncle energy though I like him)

Now, onto Mar themselves! They’re in emotional pain for a lot of the book, and have a sizable amount of trauma attributed to their magic(which is just called the Spanish word for it, magía, here). That prevents them from seeking out solutions related to that. I get it. But damn I was SO annoyed at them for just. Making things drag out?! Literally half of the book would’ve never happened had they just realized they had these super powerful abilities at their disposal!! And, sure, the aforementioned Dami Scheme WAS convoluted in that somehow the rest of the La Ana crew had to be involved(more like endangered) too, but Dami’s reasoning for their plan was completely understandable imo. When they were frustrated at Mar for their hesitance I was too oh my gods. (Seriously though, when Dami was basically about to pull their hair out because of anger and stress, I was too, and started full-on laughing because it was basically my reaction. I felt seen by that! Sigh.) Anyhow. That issue aside, I loved their characterization as a transmasc non-binary protagonist. I related heavily to their feelings of gender dysphoria, and appreciated as a Spanish learner that the La Catalina crew (and some other folks who knew about Mar not being a boy but non-binary) added the “e” ending to their Spanish when referring to them. Also, little bit of a personal note but I thought it was interesting how they presented really masculine and were alright with “boy” being used as a descriptor for themselves sometimes; a lot of non-binary rep is kept strictly androgynous(well, particularly in television because books are more diverse I noticed), and as a non-binary person who also identifies as gender-fluid and uses male/masculine labels occasionally, this was yet another facet of their identity I felt truly represented by.

Magic system I’m a little on-the-fence about, to be honest, because we have some idea of how the strain on Mar limits their usage of it and it ties into the plot(I liked the added detail of them having to use their magic every 2 or so weeks because it would build up!), but they also get pretty powerful with little to no training and I wish the book was a bit longer so we could get more time to develop that. And, as the previous paragraph gave away, we didn’t get a ton of action scenes involving magic! It stilted its development, sadly, and kinda led to the sudden influx of power in the quick ending. Also, a bit spoiler-y but

I thought the magic society in Isla Mujeres I believe(?) was mentioned too little? Maybe that’s just me, though. Mar didn’t really end up going there so what’s the point in going out of your way to flesh it out, but also that’s such a major detail.

 

Oh! Speaking of the audiobook I briefly mentioned in the first paragraph, to those of you who might know of an HBO Max show called “Our Flag Means Death”, Vico Ortiz(who plays Jim) does the narration!! (This was a bit of information I was so gleeful about that until 20 or so days to “The Wicked Bargain”s release date I was in disbelief ksnfksnfo, it was so topical for them considering they’re now known for their role in the “gay pirate show”??and I loved the book summary so much.) Some of the gruffer male voices they did took a bit of warming up to(or I struggled a bit to take seriously), but I loved the different details they added in character emotion and expression. You can tell they had an absolute blast narrating because it totally shows. (Unfortunately though I learned audiobooks just aren’t my thing because I read faster than I or others speak, nothing against the narration obviously, if I wanted to listen to any one audiobook though I was gonna hold out for the actor of my favorite OFMD character.)

Anyhow, overall though I loved the hell out of this book. It had all the pirate adventure I was looking for, and it’s one of my only library books I’ve developed an intense emotional attachment to and am literally waiting right until the due date day to return. I’m not ready to say goodbye to all of these characters! I’ll write my own short little fanfiction if I so decide.