Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > The Night Ship

I don’t think I’ve ever been so torn over a book before. This is a book I genuinely liked 50% of and greatly disliked the other 50% of.

The half of the book I enjoyed was the timeline set in 1629, mostly set on board the ship Bavaria. I loved our precocious, bored, plucky (but still just mostly a young girl bored and in need of entertainment and distraction) high-born young lady and main character, Mayken, who embraces the sea life out of both necessity and for wont of nothing to do for six months with little to no supervision on a large vessel like the Bavaria. I love how she made friends, made deals, sought out adventures, took care of people, and didn’t mind getting dirty (physically, of course) if she thought it might help make the passage of their ship just that much easier for anyone on board the ship who might need it. Reading about her adventures, trevails, bravery, and sweetness were my favorite parts of the book.

But then we have the parallel story of Gil, set in 1989. This half of the book I simply couldn’t stand. It’s not that it was difficult to read. I’ve read harsher stories. I’ve read sadder stories. I’ve read rougher stories. It was simply that Mayken’s story was so flushed out (helped out naturally by the real-life story of the Bavaria and its wreckage), that Gil’s story seemed shortchanged in terms of real plot and, instead, the author went straight for just maximum wreckage in this character’s life, almost to the point of exploitation. This half had a lot of filler, and it’s already a long book. I ended up feeling like when we were in the 1989 timeline we were just doing a whole lot of hurry up and wait. That’s not the kind of story I want to read.

I don’t normally give TW, but I will give this one because I freaking hated it when it happened in the book: there is a scene with a deliberate description of animal cruelty.

So I’d say the book was great on the historical fiction level, but not so great on the contemporary fiction level. But that ruins the whole point of the novel, and therefore the novel comes out at just average.

Thanks to NetGalley and Arctis Books for granting me access to this book. Due to the 3 Star or lower rating this review will not be posted on any bookseller or social media website.