read for PopSugar 2018 challenge: a book set at sea

I'm really disappointed that I didn't like this book more. On the surface it delivers everything it promises: lady pirates fighting the violent warlord. But once you dig deeper, not much was there. The writing was incredibly weak. There's so little description about the technology and the world, that I was constantly confused whenever new vocabulary was introduced and just not explained. For example, what is Silt? An addictive drug that the warlord uses to control his armies. When did I figure that out? Oh probably about 3 or 4 chapters after it would have made sense to. What are Amina's Knots? I think they're elite snipers, under the technology person on the ship? Frankly, I still don't really know. There's a lot of complicated technical work going into the ship, but I was never confident I knew what was happening. Now this may be an ebook thing, but most ebooks do still contain it, but there was no map! You're writing a fantasy world? Give me a map!!!

Additionally, the writing was a prime example of telling instead of showing. This is a third person POV from Caledonia's perspective, and so much of the narrative was stating things instead of giving us a more nuanced look at the action. For example:

"Before her stood the most dangerous person in all of [spoilerish place], the one man she needed to avoid. This was a man who went to great lengths to appease Aric Athair in order to continue operating with authority, who would certainly turn over Caledonia and her crew if it meant securing his own interests."

I highlight this opening to a chapter because I started laughing. This was all information that had been previously revealed when the characters first reached this location! We as readers are aware of the consequences. This made things feel so much more anticlimatic! Let the characters speak and reveal how they feel towards one another, rather than giving the reader a basic primer (except please give me an index of the aspects of this world you don't over explain).

I also felt let down by the character work. I don't understand anyone's personality except Caledonia. We get to see her struggling with her guilt about her family's death, and her dilemma of leading a ship and living up to her mother. But we don't get great insights into other characters except for really wide brush strokes. Also... 53 girls on a ship and there's not a variety of romanic entanglements? Seems really unrealistic. There's one couple but they're more alluded to than out right everyone recognizing oh yes these people are in romantic love, not just sisterly love. I love romance so much, and I rarely find romances to be unnecessary, but the main romance of this book... so unnecessary. There's no buildup. No yearning. No dying for the two to finally realize their feelings. I saw it coming and just rolled my eyes so hard when it did happen.

I feel really let down by this book, because I don't even feel like it was just an average read. It was pretty bad. At least it helped me with my reading challenge.

Look call me a glutton for punishment, but I really want a love/hate, enemies to lovers type situation with Lir. Is he responsible for her family's death? Yes! I think? I mean I assume the bullets probably would've found the ship kind of easily, but who knows. She had way more chemistry with Lir than yawnface Oran, especially when Lir was threatening to kill her at the end. But maybe my romance desires for YA novels are a little too fucked up)