Review - Hook: Dead to Rights (DNF)

Hook: Dead to Rights (Captain Hook and the Pirates of Neverland #1)
by Melissa Snark
Date: 2018
Publisher: Nordic Lights Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 230
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

Neverland is a wondrous isle of adventure.

Neverland is a cruel lie.

Children follow Peter Pan believing their dreams will come true—to never grow up.

Surprise, surprise... they never will. The children Peter Pan abducts are murdered or meet a grimmer fate.

I'm the child who escaped Peter's treachery. I've made it my life's calling to rescue the Lost Boys, even those who don't wish to be saved. Now Pan has a schooner he's using to steal even more children. I'm the only one who can stop him.

Call me Hook. I am the master and commander of a pirate ship, and I'll have my revenge on Peter Pan if it's the last thing I do.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

DNF @ 31%

I think I've been more than fair in giving this one a shot. At almost 1/3 of the way through, exciting things have only just started to happen. Six chapters before that were taken up with introducing characters on the pirate ship Revenge and annoying me with the overly modern narration. (Correction: The author tries to make the writing sound old-timey but doesn't always succeed. It often comes across as a teenage girl participating in Talk Like a Pirate Day.)

For such a short book, I expected things to move along much faster. But the story is so slow. And I'm finding it difficult to care about what happens.

Also, if you're going to gender-swap characters from the Edwardian era, don't name them things like Jayden. If I'm being honest, that pretty much clinched this book as a DNF for me. The author could've gone with Jane Hook. Even Jamesina Hook would've been more realistic. Jayden Hook? Give me a break; last I checked, the infamous Captain Hook was not part of Generation Z.

Review - Death by Airship

Death by Airship
by Arthur Slade
Date: 2019
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Reading level: MG
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 128
Format: paperback
Source: library

Prince Conn will never be king. And that's just fine with him. He's ninth in line for the pirate throne and is quite happy to sail the skies in his airship with his crew of cheery misfits, plundering as they go. But one by one his siblings are being murdered, in tragic fires, violent cannon attacks or mysterious poisonings. Soon all fingers are pointing toward Conn as the mastermind. To prove his innocence, Conn must make his way to Skull Island, navigating his airship through a gauntlet of villains, explosions and betrayals. Can he reach his father's kingdom before it's too late? Or will he suffer the same fate as the rest of his family?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I was looking for a short YA book. This is short, but my library had it shelved wrong. But I figured, "Why not?" I'd read another book by Slade before, and it wasn't terrible, so I thought I'd give Death by Airship a try.

Disclaimer: I am not an eleven-year-old boy.

Maybe, if I had been, I would've liked this more. Maybe I wouldn't have been bothered by the physics-defying feats or the lack of logic. Maybe I wouldn't have thought it was so darn goofy. Maybe I wouldn't have seen the villain coming from miles away. Maybe I would've given the lacklustre resolution a pass. And maybe I wouldn't have seen the cover as a reject from a self-publisher's reject pile. (The book is not self-published... but that cover is doing it no favours.)

Still, if you like puns, snark, and silliness in a quasi-steampunk setting, you might like this more than I did. It's a quick, amusing read... but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting or looking for.

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Rating: 2.63 out of 5 ladybugs