Adrienne Young takes the readers to the ways of the traders life, who live and dies by the ways of the sea:
Fable has spent the past 4 years of her life stranded on an island, forced to do what she can to survive, in order to make enough coin to buy passage home. Fable is the daughter of the most respected and feared trader. He is also the man who left her on the island and told her that if she could make her own way home, he would respect her and that she was more cut out for the life among the traders than he believed. But her father has rivals and enemies a plenty all of whom would like to get their hands on Fable for her unique gift with stones. Fable has to figure out who she can trust and use all her instincts in order to be able to survive this world. When she meets a trader names West and his small crew, she hopes that he is someone she can trust, but everyone has their own secrets.
This book had the was one of the host raved about YA novels last year and while I do read some YA novels I am fairly selective in those that I do read. This one had so many great reviews associated with it that I decided to give it a try, plus I haven't read a pirate based book, since....ahem, I read romance novels many many years ago (full on bodice ripping on the cover type, lol).
This book can basically be summed up as fun, easy read, with a strong female character that takes places on the high seas. The writing is good and the plot is easy to follow, flows well but there are no real big surprises throughout (except the end). Mainly the plot is a little simple and not a lot happens in the book. The beginning was really strong with Fable struggling to live and get off the island, things happen in the middle and then around the last 20-30% things really pick up again. In between that there is just a lot of sailing and going to other islands, that's about it. I will say that I was surprised with a few darker moments in the book that elevated the book in my opinion.
There are times where I thought that the secondary characters seemed more interesting than Fable. I mean Fable has a strong start with being stranded on the island to fend for herself and her power is pretty interesting (and I hope it is explored further in the next book), but she seems to fizzle out once she leaves the island, kind of like a fish out of water thing who does not have the ability to follow orders and lacks common sense a few times
This book was a good, easy read and I think that any YA reader will be happy with the plot and story as it unfolds. As an adult reading this book it felt a little simple and I wasn't completely sold on the romance in the story, I wish they would have taken a longer period for it to develop. As well I just felt like it took too long for the plot to unfold, the middle portion of the book doesn't add a lot of substance to the book. However, with a cliffhanger like Young leaves at the end of this book, I know I will be checking out to next book.
No comments:
Post a Comment