Thursday, October 3, 2013

The Commodore's Daughter by Jami Brazil

This is a decent story of a girl who shucks the trappings of society and makes her own way in the world after being stranded in a foreign land.

 I had some big issues with this book, however.  The first-person narration doesn't always flow well, making it awkward to read in several places.  Although progressive for her time and friends with Susan B. Anthony, Jenny isn't very convincing as being from the 1850s.  She's far too modern in her manner of speech.  She even says, "like" in a current fashion in a few places.  As in, "I didn't want to do it, but, like, I had to."  While not a direct quote, it does give some idea what I mean.

Another issue I had was that, in the author biography, Ms. Brazil's love of research is cited.  I cannot say I've done the amount of research I know it takes to write a historical fiction novel, but it doesn't appear that much, if any, was done on manner of speech. 

 If one can get past these literary obstacles, the story is good.  But I had to fight my way around the issues to get to the heart of that story.

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