selket16's review against another edition
2.0
Everybody else seems to like it, but I couldn't even bring myself to finish it. I found the book boring and Calista annoying. The casual racism, appropriate for the time period, was a little inappropriate considering this is for tweens.
samanthabryant's review against another edition
4.0
Cali Antoine is an engaging heroine whose adventures make for an interesting travelogue.
The novel begins with a frame, forming the conceit that it is not a novel, but the work of a fictional M. Bondurant hired to tell the life story of the Duchess of Tervuren in 1902. I enjoyed that throwback to classic works, that layer that is meant to prove the verity of the tale because the writer was told the story by someone else.
The story proper begins after this frame and is told in first person for the remainder of the book, jumping back to Cali's youth, in 1892, when she's a schoolgirl waiting to be picked up at the end of term by her parents who have been out of touch while they make a run on their family ship, the titular Red Jacket.
The story continues in chronological order, and ends before we get back to the tease at the beginning, which disappointed me, but I see that there is a second book, so that makes some sense. While the narrative was always pleasant and interesting, it sort of meandered, lacking urgency or a feeling of overall plot. It was more a series of events and a travelogue than a traditionally plotted novel.
It was hard sometimes to know if a character was going to be important for only a scene or if they would matter for the whole book. Still, Cali herself was interesting enough to keep me reading.
The ending few chapters were quite action packed, riffing nicely off of real historical events (as did much of the rest of the story). Glad I had the chance to read this one.
The novel begins with a frame, forming the conceit that it is not a novel, but the work of a fictional M. Bondurant hired to tell the life story of the Duchess of Tervuren in 1902. I enjoyed that throwback to classic works, that layer that is meant to prove the verity of the tale because the writer was told the story by someone else.
The story proper begins after this frame and is told in first person for the remainder of the book, jumping back to Cali's youth, in 1892, when she's a schoolgirl waiting to be picked up at the end of term by her parents who have been out of touch while they make a run on their family ship, the titular Red Jacket.
The story continues in chronological order, and ends before we get back to the tease at the beginning, which disappointed me, but I see that there is a second book, so that makes some sense. While the narrative was always pleasant and interesting, it sort of meandered, lacking urgency or a feeling of overall plot. It was more a series of events and a travelogue than a traditionally plotted novel.
It was hard sometimes to know if a character was going to be important for only a scene or if they would matter for the whole book. Still, Cali herself was interesting enough to keep me reading.
The ending few chapters were quite action packed, riffing nicely off of real historical events (as did much of the rest of the story). Glad I had the chance to read this one.
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