Book Review: Voyage of Pearl of the Seas by Ruth Finnegan

Genre: Children/Adventure/Fantasy/Fairy Tale
Number of Pages: 134
Publication Date: January 1, 2018

Story Perspective: Third-Person
Themes: Travel, Animals, Relationships
To Learn More About the Book, Click:
Voyage of Pearl of the Seas on OBC Bookshelf Page

*This was part of the OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day Program and is reviewed for the Blogger Review Program*

Chris, Kate, and their dog, Holly, take an adventure on a ship they build. They plan to travel the world with their magical ship. While exploring, they meet The King of Many Names, who may be able to teach them an important lesson in life. Question is – will they be able to make it safely back home for tea time?

Oh, this book. It’s one that I unfortunately felt no need to actually read, but decided to as it was part of the Blogger Reviewer Program at OnlineBookClub.org. There really wasn’t any redeeming qualities of this book, so I apologize in advance if this review sounds like I’m ranting.

There was zero character development and growth. What was given about the two children was negative. I found Chris to be so arrogant, and aggressively against women and their ability to accomplish things in life that I couldn’t stand him. Quotes like, “you girlies all so feeble” and “That’s what girlies were for, wasn’t it, being bossed around…” just rubbed me the wrong way. Then, there were at least two instances where Kate was hit twice. It was unclear if it was part of a dream or not, but it was still disturbing to read, especially this line: “…he hit her again the lout (don’t worry, he loved her really, best pal ever, just he was cross, well – agony – men feel it worst you know).” What? Is the author insinuating that men feel it worse when they hit women? What kind of message is this for children? I know, for sure, this wouldn’t be a book I would want my future children to read.

The plot was very choppy and difficult to enjoy. The children travel and meet a king and queen, but it wasn’t very exciting. Perhaps it was the writing that brought the story down more. I believe the writing was meant to be lyrical, but there were so many errors and inconsistent usage of words that the lyrical part was lost. With words like “enlarge-ening”, “inspire-actioning”, missing capitalization and punctuation, this book needs a lot of revisions before I can recommend it to anyone.

Between the unsuitable message about abusive men and the women they abuse, the convoluted and uninteresting storyline, the errors galore, and lack of getting to know the characters, I don’t feel this is suitable for children (or anyone, really).