Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Voyage of the Damned

I find it difficult sometimes to differentiate between "bad" or "flawed" writing choices and writing choices I simply don't like, but seeing as I rate my reads on enjoyment rather than objective quality, I'll be quite honest.
For a debut novel, this was not bad. It kept me engaged, consistently twisting my assumptions of what was really going on down to the final chapters. (Excitingly, SPOILERS:

I was partially right in two of my guesses. One of which being that either Eudora, Ravi, or both were alive and in on the murders. The other guess being an alternative to the first; that Cordelia was the murderer, because a "seemingly innocent" frail girl gone mad with grief is an easy call from 300 pages away.)

However, I have some complaints. One of which being that Ganymedes left me disappointed as a protagonist. I have a strong penchant for "misfit asshole" characters, but as protagonists you also have to either have them grow or at least have their flaws pointed out in the story. Dee's insistence that he was the only one who understood Ravi and being convinced that his attitude toward him was a lie after having not seen him for five years especially irked me, and even worse

that the story proved him right

. He was entertaining at first, but the story became so distracted with the mystery that it forgot to give Dee time to reflect on himself. The most we got were a few moments of him thinking "I guess I don't know this person who I've only spoken to a handful of times in my life as well as I thought I did.", which, yeah, no shit. I empathize with Dee, as anybody who has been made to feel like a lowly outsider would, but ultimately he was mostly just self-centred and was mostly humanized through the six-year-old that was glued to his side for most of the story who

he nearly got killed anyway to literally go commit suicide

.
I promise I'm not normally a cynical reader, but I think it's fair to be put off by every other character spilling their guts to him or telling him that he was a good person when the story spent its first fifth establishing how much they were supposed to hate and distrust him.
Lastly, and this is really more of a personal issue than a writing one (maybe), but the reveal of

Wyatt having been Ravi all along

was not the triumph I think it was supposed to land as. I spent hundreds of pages

falling in love with Wyatt as a character, being happy that Dee stopped clinging to the childhood love he thought he knew, only for him to have been dead all along, with Ravi having lied to Dee, and to the audience the whole time. It devastated me. I was given zero time to mourn the boy who never existed as I was essentially told "oh well, it was Ravi the whole time so the emotions were still real!" as if that was supposed to fix the dissonance between the characters of Ravi and Wyatt in my head. And the fact that I was supposed to forgive Ravi in the last stretch of the book for having been in on the devastation that the plot was centered around felt like an extra slap in the face. Barely any thought was even given to the real Wyatt, only how he died.

Anyways, I know that I've complained a lot in this review, but overall it was a compelling read! The dialogue was well written and the conflict well-paced, if not slow to start. I am a locked tomb fan, and this story has quite a few similarities to it (so many so that I started keeping tally of all the comparisons I could make in my head), so overall I found it entertaining enough to finish in just a few sittings. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and the details are where this story falters most, outside of its core murder mystery plot.
(P.S. I want a prequel novella about Leofric and Lysander.)

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tessalovespanda's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Very unserious read. Diverse set of characters. A lot of self loathing main character and extreme emotions. Crude language.

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the_queer_bibliophile's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for the eARC of this book. I ended up reading a physical copy I received at the ALA conference. All thoughts are my own. I gotta say, this book had me on my toes from the very beginning. I loved Dee from the start, his humor being very relatable to my own. I also love Grasshopper and some of the other side characters.

I loved how much they emphasized the importance of mental health in this book. And just the general belief of believing in yourself. This book overall was a good laugh and a good mystery novel. I definitely recommend it to those who enjoy mystery/fantasy themes and LGBTQ+ representation.

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evarinya's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Somehow the most interesting premise managed to end up getting worse chapter by chapter... Similar to the MC, I'm afraid.
I liked trying to figure out the mystery, but then when it was resolved it felt like there was no way a reader (or, well, me) could have actually figured out what happened with the information that was given.
Also there were some really contrived bits I strongly disliked.
At least some scenes were cute and/or funny, though.

Grasshopper is actually so cute/funny!

It was cool to see that there was a bunch of diversity throughout the book, but [heavy spoilers]

that every genderqueer person died at the end left a really stale taste for me. I mean, great, the woman liking women and two of the gay/bi men survived, but the trans man as well as the nonbinary person died in the stupidest ways (imho)

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kiwij96's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The leaders of the country's 12 provinces find themselves on a murder cruise. I mean, what isn't to love about that idea? Characters with their own strong beliefs and concerns, and heavy on the distrust.

100% check your trigger warnings for this one. However, there is so much to love about this story. It is well-paced and the perfect length for the story to be told. Nothing felt wasted or out of place in terms of the pacing,

however, I didn't super love the fade to black at the end of the last chapter. That felt really out of place for me.</spoiler

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rubyredders's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book does NOT go big into details on the magic system or hitting you with the history of the world or even how the weird weather patterns work but you know what I DO NOT CARE - I didnt come here for high fantasy Tolkien level world building. I came here for the murder mystery with fantasy elements and I got that.

It's very locked room murder mystery ala And Then There Were None, with everyone on board the ship being a chosen magic user for their respective area and the deaths start thick and fast. Trying to figure out the murder mystery was fun.

I was watching those dead bodies mount up like which of you are fake dead I know one of you must be because Mrs Christie has my mind always looking for that false lead and I WAS RIGHT

So many of the characters are endearing and the representation is insane. We got queers of every flavour, trans rep, a wheelchair user and a chronic pain sufferer with long term illness. Plus every one of them is some variety of messed up. These people have suffered, are suffering and are causing suffering to each other.

Our main character Ganymedes (Dee) sometimes comes across a bit younger than he is in the writing, but I can excuse it because, again, all these characters are going through it and clearly living a different life from the average person. He did have some great moments of maturity though

How he describes his meetings with the Crabs and others reactions to them, his care for Grasshopper and the chess match! Dee's biggest strength is how much everyone underestimates him due to his purposely off-putting behaviour

There was a romance subplot that I shan't say more about because spoilers

it was sweet, is all I'll say

The ending wrapped everything up while leaving the future open to interpretation.

I'll be keeping my eye out for the authors future works because this is a very strong start.

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kylosten's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was ready to give this 5 stars because it was such a fun read up until an aspect of the ending pertaining to the L.I. that I will put in spoiler tag below.
I thought I was going to be lost at first because of how many characters there were (I struggle with remembering names) but the map and list of characters at the beginning helped a lot! I flipped back to both throughout the story.
I thought the way the author gave pieces to solve the mystery was good. Not telegraphing everything too much, but nothing came out of nowhere, either.
The relaxed writing style and angsty MC had me unsure if I was going to like this but it made this really easy to read and I ended up really enjoying it! The angst made sense for a 22 year old who has grown up with trauma.
If you like movies like Clue or Knives Out you'll probably enjoy the vibes of this (if you're also okay with some fantasy mixed in).
The chapters are on the longer side.

Ending spoiler:

I found it really odd the MC forgave the LI for going along with and being ready to participate in a genocide of all the people the MC cared about. It was pretty much completely disregarded and barely acknowledged.
I almost wish the LI would have died even though it would take away from the HEA.

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