Celia Rees

Pirates!

Kristen

I've wanted to read this book for YEARS. That said, it was a little disappointing for how long I put it off. I tried to read it maybe 10 years ago, and I think I got 100 or so pages into it and couldn't do it anymore. I remember it being quite boring in the beginning, and a chore to trudge through, so I decided this time to listen to it instead.

I love pirate stories. Ever since I did a research project in middle school on Anne Bonny, I've been fascinated by pirates. Female pirates, specifically. I have yet to find a truly great pirate adventure, though. Maybe Curse of the Black Pearl is the closest I'll ever get.

This story was told by Nancy Kington. She looked back on her life, explaining to us what happened to her. And it FELT like that. The story dragged in most places. I listened to the audiobook on double speed, and I still found myself just waiting for it to be over. I couldn't just listen and do something mundane, I had to keep shutting off the book for a while to focus on something else and reset my brain to handle another half hour. It wasn't particularly fun overall, although I did enjoy several chunks of it. 

The story was told very passively, and there was very little opportunity to slip into the story and feel like I was experiencing what Nancy had. It was the same feeling I used to have while listening to my grandma tell stories of her childhood: a little interesting, but mostly boring and I was only half listening except for a few choice parts. 

The novel was well-researched and the time period felt authentic (even though the author did take some forgivable liberties to nudge the story in the right direction), but the buildup leading to Nancy actually becoming a pirate was far too long. I would have enjoyed spending more time on the ship with her, learning how to be a pirate and fight and hold her own, than reading about all the stuff at the beginning. It did have the benefit of creating a strong emotional connection with Nancy and her life before, but I feel that first half of the novel could have been much more concise and still conveyed the same thing. 

The "romance" was cute, but it was also very childish and naive and the novel probably could have done without EXCEPT that it gave Nancy motive and added a little tension in some places. It was cute in the way you think of 13-year-olds going on dates is cute, but it wasn't what I was expecting from a book about a pirate, even if the book is geared more for those 13-year-olds than someone twice that age. It was sweet, though. It's not a main plot point, or even really a subplot, but it's more a characteristic of Nancy, why she does things the way she does, why she makes many of her decisions, and one explanation for the worries and fears that plague her like shadows.

I found it enjoyable after Nancy became a pirate, but in the pages leading up to it, it was a little boring.

Lisa

Mindy Wise

In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.

Pirates!

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