A review by zhakoreading
Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

2.25

…raucous section of town, the one that wakes once the rest of the city sleeps.

He’s awfully handsome when he’s angry.

This book was loads of fun!

I’m not a fan of YA books- especially of this particular subgenre, however, this story managed to entertain me for a good few hours and elicit a good laugh which is far more than I expected from it.

The characters were likable enough- enough for me to chuckle at their banters and care for them at certain points of plot; the world building was very simple, but understandable enough for me not to question the existence of pirates or sirens or anything else the plot introduced, and Alosa’s main goal and plan, and her actions were believable and understandable.

Though, I did hate certain usage of tropes, such as using beauty as a way of seduction (I know she’s a siren, but that was annoying, still), the almost rape scenes and overly “protective” male interest (him telling her what she can or can’t wear was icky), however, I did think that some of the thoughts the main character had were rather progressive, and her interest Rigan was not a typical bad boy, which was also refreshing to see.

The logic of the characters, however, was SEVERELY LACKING. It was almost as if they had ZERO sense of understanding how pirating works! Like what do you mean you’re leaving the ship with an extremely important prisoner without any guarding at night? What do you mean you’re letting the very dangerous and skilled prisoner to have all of her clothes and stuff IN THE CELL?! What do you mean you’re letting her sleep in her cell without ANY GUARDING? 

A lot of ridiculous stuff like that happened, unfortunately.

My least favorite part of the book, however, was the whole siren power thing. It doesn’t add to the plot as much- it seems unnecessary, and makes the book a very sloppy fantasy story, instead of a cool pirating adventure. AND leaves more room for plot holes.

The siren thing also made the plot unnecessarily heavy with the torture scenes of Alosa. The grand escape and all was just tiresome to read. Too much stuff happened in too little time, and it was too stimulating to read about, in a way.

Author’s writing style was dumbing everything down for the readers which was freaking annoying at times, since I was reading NOT a middle grader book. It stopped doing so closer to the end, though.

I do, however, think, that structurally, despite the story being fairly predictable and simple, it’s written well. All Chekhov’s guns actually fire by the end, and leave you more or less satisfied.

It was a fun read, but objectively not a good book.
I still would recommend it to people in a reading slump, or fans of romantasy!