CW: gore, death, blood, mention of suicide, cannibalism, panic attacks, kidnapping

Dnf at page 222/50%.

This book has a really unique premise and I really wanted to like it, since I’ve seen a good number of people in the book community talk about it and how good it is. I did like it, but I also read half the book in three days. It’s summer and this is a fairly short book; it took me three days to read 222 pages. In my opinion, that means there’s something wrong. So yeah, this had a lot of potential but just wasn’t for me.

A brief list of things I liked:
- the map
- the world-building, although it could’ve been better
- the format, with the hidden words and messages, the ink smears, and the covered paragraphs; it was really cool (I’m so eloquent.)
- Captain Reed and his crew
- not sure if this counts in a review but the cOVER WOW (lowkey tempted to own the complete trilogy just for aesthetic reasons, even though I dnfed this and have no plans to read the other two.)

I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t like this, as books and pirates seem like a good recipe for a book, but what can you do. I’d still recommend this if it sounds intriguing!!