Saturday, April 14, 2018

Vampirates | Justin Somper


Summary:

The Tempest twins, Connor and Grace, have lost everything. After their father's death, all his debts were called in and cost the twins their home. Their only options are to move into the orphanage whose headmistress already has plans to work them, or be adopted by a couple more interested in pets than kids. They take the third option and steal their father's boat and run away. Unfortunately a storm separates the twins. Connor gets picked up by a pirate ship and Grace gets picked up by the Vampirate ship of legend. The book follows their attempts at to stay alive long enough to reunite. 

Review:

Yes, this is a middle-grade book. Yes, I picked it up because the title made my inner child go "woah!" No, I have no regrets.

This book was an easy and enjoyable read. The main characters are generally smart, if a bit too curious sometimes. I greatly appreciated that Connor was as empathetic as he was towards Cheng Li and her situation. Captain Wrathe was a lot of fun and really embodied a lot of what people consider a pirate to be while also being a good captain to his crew.

I also really appreciated the sword/weapons based exposition Connor received from his lessons with Cutlass Cate. The talk about the different weapons and their respective fighting styles was a delight to read. So many people think broadswords are easy to handle and effective at killing, but they're a lot better for show and can be unwieldy. The precision weapons are the ones that are effective in slaying an enemy.

This world was a little difficult to get into. So much of the book makes it sound like a historical fiction but, in fact, the book takes place about 500 years in the future. While this fact is presented up front, it was still sometimes jarring to read about Grace having a diver's watch that could survive 500 feet under water. If I really wanted to get into this world, perhaps the graphic novels would help me with these things.

In all, if I were younger I know I'd be devouring this series. As it is, I still found this to be a fun read, but probably won't be picking up any more books in the series. I do recommend this book if you have younger readers or enjoy middle-grade books in general. 3.5 hoots!

                    Hoot!

                Hoot!Hoot!
                     Hoo


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