Welcome back to another Collective Review. Will we like this book or not this time? Stick around to find out! We review Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller which was not originally on our Collective To Be Read List but we both were in the mood for pirates.
(T.W : mention of rape)
Why did you decide to read this book?
S: My best friend told me about this book ages ago, and I kind of just forgot about it until recently. I wanted to read something about pirates, so after consulting Eponine we decided to pick this up and give it a try.
E.: Solene and I were in the mood for stories with pirates. I had a lot of books with this specific trope in my TBR List that I shared with Solene. Our choice went to Daughter of the Pirate King because it was short and I could buy it on my Ipad.
Before reading it, what were your expectations?
S: Nothing much. The title didn’t really draw me in, I was just expecting something very cliché about pirates and a badass main character.
E.: I was excited for this book. I had seen it a lot on BookTok and had heard a lot of good things about the author. I had quite high expectations for this book, not going to lie. I was so excited to go into a story with pirates.
After the first chapter, did you wanted to read more?
S: Yep. While this is in no way anything new or original, you can just tell that the author had fun writing it, and it leaves you wanting to read more.
E.: The story had a quick pace and left me wanting more. The first chapter made me want to read more of the story.
Rate this book on a scale from 1 to 10?
S: 5.5/10 . Everything that happened in this was easy to foresee, but at the same time, I had a really good time reading this book. It was a very easy read, very fluid, and it took me very little time to finish the book.
E.: For the first time, our opinions diverge from each other. For me, this book is a 4.5/10. I kept rolling my eyes while reading the story. The good thing was that this book was short so it was easy to read and to follow the story.
Favourite character? Most hated character?
S: I think the crew of the main character was nice, especially the assassin (I can’t remember her name for the life of me, sadly). I’m not the biggest fan of Riden, though.
E.: I had no interest in any of the characters. I neither loved them or hated them. I just did not care for them at all.
Would you recommend this book?
S: If you’re looking for an easy read, something fun and a bit cliché, yes, absolutely
E.: I have not read other stories with pirates but I think there are better books to read. I would probably recommend this book for an easy and quick read especially for people for whom English is not their native language, otherwise, I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone.
What could have been done by the author for you to enjoy the book even more?
S : I think all the talk about rape and such things kind of threw me off in the beginning. I get that that it’s there to sort of set this very hard and pirate-like environment, but at the same time it felt very over the top. It also took quite a long time to get to the actual plot of her doing her pirate job. As I previously stated, this is all very cliché, so of course we get a lot of tropes that one might either really love or really hate (and it makes for a LOT of eye rolls).
E.: For me, the main character, Alosa, was too perfect, too strong and it was hard to relate to her or even like her. The love story between her and Riden also made me roll my eyes so much. There was this weird tension between them and I did not like it. I am not a fan of enemies to lovers so I guess this book was not for me anyway.
Final thoughts:
S: This was fun, and I’ll definitely read the sequel. It’s a very small book, that isn’t trying too hard to be « the best thing ever ». I do wish they didn’t compare the main character to Jack Sparrow though, there is only one of him. Unlike other books we have read in this bookclub, there were not unnecessary descriptions which made for a quick pacing, I really liked that.
E.: I feel like I have been to harsh on this book. I need to end this on a positive note because I actually quite enjoyed reading it. Solene and I finished it in barely two days. It was a fun and easy read. Everything was happening quickly and you did not have to wait to see action scenes. It was easy to understand. I might pick up the sequel one day, just not now.
What’s next?
S: Unfortunately, studying for my upcoming exams (that includes reading some books but no one is interested in that).
E. I had started reading Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo and had paused to read Daughter of the Pirate King. After reading it, I went back to the twisted town of Ketterdam with the Crows. It was a solid 10/10 read.
This is probably the first book we read where our opinions diverge a little bit. In the end, we still had mostly the same feeling about the book. But it’s interesting to see that we can still like and enjoy different things. We have yet to decide our next read!
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