It took me a while to warm to Piratica - more than half the book, in fact, and there were a few times when I really thought about just giving up. I did like the solving of the puzzle for the treasure, that was brilliant, but I found it a bit too cheesy and predictable at the end.

Why was this book not around when I was younger? This had everything my young self loved: adventure, romance, pirates who don't kill, a treasure hunt, and an awesome young woman at the helm. Had I read this book when I was young, I would love it to pieces.

Alas, I'm older now, and I couldn't help but see flaws rather than the parts I loved. The style of this book is choppy and abrupt. There's some creative imagery, but there's also a treasure hunt scene with a distinct lack of tension, an issue with pacing, foreshadowing laid on thick, and an unconvincing reason given for the title character's innate talent for piracy.

The style of the book is straightforward, to the point of terseness. There are a few different perspectives the story is told through (it's third person semi-omniscient), and the transitions from one perspective to another aren't always obvious.

The style takes away from the tension quite a bit. I felt like the most interesting part of the story was told in the middle. While the ending still held some surprises, it was told with a hopeless, resigned tone that made it hard to plow through. The treasure hunt and subsequent climactic duel is the most interesting part of the book, but the hunt, itself, feels like reading about someone's afternoon walk.

There were a lot of elements in this book that I enjoyed, but this is a book best enjoyed by the age group it's written for. It's safe for a preteen audience; while there's romance, it's people pining after one another in a very distant, signals-crossed sort of way. Bad language is expressed in a made-up slang for the book, and the title character never drinks anything stronger than coffee.

This was an enjoyable enough book, and if I had a son or a daughter to read it to, I'd probably like it more. But on its own merits, reading it as an adult, it left something to be desired.

Fler pirater åt folket! Det här var kul. Inte den mest verkliga handlingen jag läst men underhållande var den!

Abandoned on page 20 of 370. I just didn’t like the style of writing.

Quasi-Review from like 2005 I'm copying in here so I won't lose it:

I like Piratica better than her wolf tower sequence. Claidi was cool though. And so's Art[emisia Blastside], the heroine of Piratica. I like Felix (insert me trying very hard to deny "because he's really pretty and I'm a sucker for that"). Story's about a crew of actors turned un-bloodthirsty pirates led by a female, btw.

2020 Notes:

This totally sounds like the kind of book I need to re read, but alas the chances of me being able to get a copy are slim.

Meh. I've been tackling this on and off since last October, but I hate giving up on books. Kinda redeemed itself a bit towards the end, but I guess this just wasn't, as another reviewer put it, "my cup of tea".

Lately it seems half the books I read were written by fourth graders. I love L.A.Meyer's Bloody Jack series; I was hoping Piratica would be similar. But there is absolutely nothing well-done about this book, from the writing to the plot to the characters, everything is mediocre.

The writing is awful. Commas are apparently unnecessary. Sometimes I had to read a sentence three or four times because it was gobbledy-gook until I filled in my own commas. Take this, for example: "Out of which the bald cliff raised itself." Hello - that is NOT a sentence, yet there are fragments like that on every page, and I'm not even joking. Who on earth edited this?

And the purple prose, like, "The stars undid their doors." What exactly is that?

I couldn't have cared less for the characters. The heroine is unremarkable. She doesn't actually DO anything. I don't remember who the crew are; they all blend together. Oh, there's a black guy and some gay guys. That other pirate girl whose name I can't remember is not even threatening. No one has any real motivation for anything; Felix comes out and tells us his, but it's pretty weak. Everything else is just, "now we're going to do this thing. Now we're going to do THAT thing. Why? I dunno, it sounds good."
It's like I've just been plunked down into the middle of the story, and I have to assume all of these characters have already been developed, but they haven't been.

The story is completely implausible; not in a fun way, but in an extremely distracting way. If these pirates really are just actors, there is NO WAY they could sail that ship, especially through massive storms. And there's only 11 of them? WTF? And they're going to find this mysterious island that no one else can find?

As far as the "parallel world" bit, there is no reason for it. It's barely different from the "real" world - I think Lee just wanted to make up a few names here and there. Because really, that's it. England is England, but Madagascar is Mad Agash Scar. Oh, and they drink coffee instead of rum.

And, for a book that lacks in anything interesting, the drama is overwhelming at times. "Will we never look at land again?" someone moans after half a page's worth of sailing. There is no meat to this, just telling us this happens, then telling us that happens. The author doesn't let you EXPERIENCE it. Let me feel their despair - don't tell me after three paragraphs how hopeless they are. And Art figures things out way too quickly, without even thinking. It's ridiculous. The way she figures out the puzzle doesn't even make sense. If the birds say their part on cue, then it would have made more sense if Plunkqwette only said "beach by cobhouse" when someone said "fifteen". Grrr. Also, if you compiled everything concerning her arch enemy, it might, MIGHT take up ten pages.

Honestly, it reminds me of the kinds of stories I wrote in 8th grade, when I thought I was being all deep. (I'm certainly not saying I could do better, but then again, I'm not a professional writer.) Except that even back then, I had a better grasp on basic grammar than Lee. It's all too much: the sickeningly flowery prose that doesn't really mean anything, jumping from one thing to another with no development, one-dimensional characters. It is seriously painful to read.

Plus, this whole device of using parentheses (but she remembered this - or did she?) is ridiculous. Even when our questions are answered, it seems completely implausible.

I would stop reading right now, but I just need to figure out WTF the real story of Art's past is. I don't really care, except that the hints are driving me bonkers.

I can't believe people put this in the same league as L.A. Meyer. His writing is far superior to Lee's in every way. They aren't even comparable. If you enjoy it, fine. I don't understand why, but you're entitled to your opinion. But comparing Lee to Meyer is like comparing Stephanie Meyer to J.K. Rowling: only one of them has a firm understanding of how to move a story along, and how to develop characters. I just want this book to be over.

Finally finished - this was just terrible. The love story was so forced, and out of the blue. I don't understand how this author has won awards for other books. I waffled between one and two stars, and finally decided to give it one because it was just that bad. I will never attempt to read anything by this author again.

Updated 7/31/13: I had completely forgotten I'd read this book. I didn't even remember the things that were in my review. That's how terrible I thought this book was.