Crying Squonk

I really have so many problems with this book that I don't even know where to start.

This book was marketed as an adult fantasy murder mystery. This is not what this book is. I'm not sure if it's something the publisher made the author do, or if she decided this story would be better suited to an adult audience, but there are MAJOR disconnects from what this story is being sold as and what it really is. It feels like a book originally written as YA with child and teen-aged characters, only to be changed in an editing pass to age up the characters into their 20s/30s to add plot-inappropriate sexual jokes, tension, and scenarios. I was begging for a scrap of seriousness, more politics, some meaningful world-building, only to get dick jokes after what were supposed to be monumental moments in the plot. The number of times the author cuts away from the scene immediately after a body is discovered made me want to scream.

The main character is supposed to be 22 years old, but truly acts and thinks like a 14 year old, including the insta-love story that happens over the course of 4 days in-book. This was after the protagonist's True Love was the second body discovered on the ship; he still fell in love with someone new in 4 days!! While grieving the death of his original love!!! The multiple twists in the ending undo everything the author was building.

He also doesn't even figure out the murders in the end - it all comes together through a literal process of elimination. Then we get two back-to-back villain monologues, like a Bond movie.

Now for my other main complaint: the author really hammers home how much she wants to include ethnic, sexual, and body diversity with imperfect heroes in her stories, yet can't seem to achieve this diversity in any meaningful way. I'm not sure if the author herself is queer, but it's giving Straight White Woman. She wants to be an ally to POC and LGBT folks, but ends up with her foot in her mouth on multiple occasions.

Examples: the bisexual protagonist at one point checks out one of the corpses and makes a comment about being owed a little pleasure after what that particular dead character put them through up to that point in the story. Fucking ew. Bisexual folks already go through so much with the "promiscuous" and "untrustworthy" accusations; PLEASE don't give us "necrophiliacs" too.

Another example: the heir that is obviously modeled after Inuit peoples is brutish (so, a savage), and literally named Eska. Like Eskimo. Like the colonizer name that the Inuit peoples have specifically said not to call them. As an indigenous person myself, again, fucking ew.

Another example: our protagonist is fat, and I was excited to see writing about fat characters with serious love interests. Problem: said fat character's main personality trait (besides being a fuck-up) is eating. His main goal in life, which is re-stated several times, is to eat every food available in the Empire. He also constantly has his little magical servant bring him mountains of sweets. I am so tired of "food" being a fat person's main personality trait, so yet again, fucking ew.

I'm tired grandpa. Here's hoping I can find a real fantasy murder mystery to scratch the itch this book did nothing for.