Reviews with content warning for Grief - Voyage of the Damned

More brutal violence than I was expecting and incredibly anime feeling. Everyone represents an animal, Fruits Basket zodiac style, and have different rainbow hair colors. The cast is very diverse, which flips back and forth between contrived and just a sign of how screwed up this world/system of governance is.

The youngest passenger is an adorable six-year-old so if "child on murder boat" raises any red flags for you, look into content warnings or just skip this one.

It's engaging but not for me.

Content Warnings

amphibianwitch's review against another edition

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hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

"Voyage of the Damned", o "ese libro que hizo que me enamorase del protagonista en el capítulo 1". Un narrador con una voz y un carisma increíbles. Una historia con muchos giros, con mucho suspense, asesinatos e intrigas. El worbu es genial y los personajes también. Grasshopper es lo mejor del universo. Ah, y todo es muy queer.

Este libro iba para 5 estrellas, disparado. Y a pesar de que lo sigo recomendando muchísimo y de que sigo adorando a Dee, me he desinflado con una revelación del final. No voy a entrar en detalles porque es un spoiler enorme. Solo diré que la forma en que todos los hilos entre las subtramas se conectan y todo cobra sentido está muy bien ligada, las pistas estaban todas ahí, pero eso no significa que tenga que gustarme. Aun así, un libro buenísimo, 4 estrellazas.

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spaceace014's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious tense 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

5.0

Omg I loved this book!! It had me gasping at every twist and turn! There were so many twists too. I wish we could see more of Ganymede’s plan for the empire and the after effects the other Blessed dying had. It was an incredible read though. I loved the magic and mystery.

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sunshinemoth's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

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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jerichamacie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny 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? No

3.75

I listened to this as an audiobook and did really enjoy the ride, but something felt a little muddled. I think it was the ending. Worth a read though!

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

Magical passengers on a magical ship, a murder mystery, the most precious main character (Ganymedes Piscero, they could never make me hate you baby!!!), AND it's an inclusive nonwhite/mixed, queer, disabled, chronically ill, mental health, and fat cast? Yeaaaaaaah, Frances White, uhhhh you dropped this *insert emoji of crown here*

I listened to the audiobook of this one and had a grand old time. The world-building was excellent, the mystery kept me on my toes (literally got more stressed as the story went on), and I loved getting to know this cast of characters. I don't want to spoil anything since this is a mystery, but please read this!

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justinekorson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I've wanted to read this ALL YEAR and it was just as good as I heard it would be!!! I, at first, was so in denial of all the murders (for obvious Ravi and Eudora reasons) that I was CONVINCED that that none of it was real?? Or like a ploy to get all the Dux's to be civil with one another? But as the story kept going I realized that, yes all of these people were actually dead. I think the deaths that upset me the most were Shinjiro and Jasper (only because he was a literal child. he was kind of an awful person). (I was also really sad when Leo died even though he was also a prick. I just felt bad for the situation that led him to do all that). I expected more of them to survive for some reason but when Cordelia's plan was revealed it all made sense in the end (sadly). I was really glad Tendai and Yewande managed to escape mostly unscathed though and I'm still mourning a little the death of Wyatt??? I was so in love with the Wyatt version of Ravi that when he revealed himself I was so shocked. There were a TON of clues though now that I'm thinking back on all of it. Overall it was such a mind bobbling story because every character I suspected died almost immediately after. I can't wait to read more books from this author!!

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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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