Curse of the Blue Tattoo

This book is good. Very good. When I read the first Bloody Jack novel, I sang it's praises. Perhaps it had to do with how I had just finished reading Carve the Mark, but at the time, Bloody Jack managed to show me that a female lead could be strong and proactive, but also have flaws, a trend that I tend to see less and less in YA today. With high expectations, I saw that the next book as an ebook was available to rent, so I downloaded it and eagerly began reading. And it was here that I began to notice some things about Jackey that I didn't like, for instance...well, we'll get to that in a minute.

First thought I have to say that this book is still very fun and interesting. After being caught and found out as a girl, Jacky now has to spend time at a girls school to try and become a lady. She tries to do as she is told, with mild success in some areas, and floundering failure in others. Eventually, we see her get busted down from Lady in Training to Chamber maid, and that is when the novel really gets moving. We see her try to make her own way in life, and we meet the novel's main antagonist, Reverend Mather, who wants Jacky for her money and possibly for her. This novel was pretty fun to read overall.

But this one still had some issues. One of which was the main antagonist. He just didn't leave me with any major impression. Now, I know that the main pirate in the first book was shown only at the end of the novel, so I had hopes that the 2nd time around Mather would be a better written villain. Is he? Not really. Other than a few mentions in the plot, he isn;t the constant presence that I think Myer was going for. The only real way that he engages in the plot is through the court system. He tries to petition the court to grant him custody of Jackie, because she is a minor and has no male relatives. Jackie then hires a lawyer to aid her in stopping this from happening. Sounds interesting, right? Well, all the trial stuff happens off page, and we are only told about it when Jacky visit the lawyer, so there really isn't much tension with Mather until the very end. No spoilers, obviously, but let's just say that a great opportunity was wasted with this villain.

Another villain to Jacky, and a downside to this novel is...Jacky herself. In the book, Jacky gets into trouble in this book, a lot. First it is with the constable, for showing her knee in public (scandalous!), then it is for playing on stage at a seedy bar, then there is the time she drank too much...and you get the idea. Many of these times Jacky is doing something to become independent in her society, but more often than not she just gets in trouble for it. She gets caught, and she says she is sorry, only to go out and do it again, leading to even more trouble. Normally I wouldn't mind this, except after a while I felt like padding in a novel, and slowed the pace down. What do I need to see her get into trouble 5 different ways when only 3 will do? This leads to almost an unsympathetic character for me, because when Jacky apologizes for her actions I not only don't believe her, but I also don't believe she learned anything, making her very unlikeable, to say the least. This makes me wonder how she is going to advance in the next book, and I hope that she actually does show some growth in that one.

Still, I liked it very much. It was a good second book, with a few more problems than the last, but, since I read the back on the third novel, it says she will be going out to see again. Let's hope that that book gives us a return to form. I give it a four out of five.