In the Belly of the Bloodhound (Bloody Jack #4)
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
The British crown has placed a price on Jacky's head, and so she returns to the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston to lay low. But laying low isn't in the cards for a spunky lass who finds trouble even when she's not looking for it.
A school outing goes awry as Jacky and her classmates are abducted and forced into the hold of the *Bloodhound*, a ship bound for the slave markets on the Barbary Coast. All of Jacky's ingenuity, determination, and plain old good luck will be put to the test as she rallies her classmates to fight together to avoid being sold on the auction block in this new installment of the Bloody Jack Adventures.
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This was a nice refreshing dip in to the pool of YA historical fiction. I was somewhat apprehensive toward this book, as the series had taken somewhat of a dip in book three. I just thought that Jackie had begun to define herself as a mary sue a little too often for my liking. After book three, I could not help but wonder if this was where she was headed for all along. As a result, I went into this book with some trepidation. Was I correct? Yes, and I think that is the problem for me.
In this book, Jackie and the other girls of the Lawson Peabody School are captured and put aboard a ship bound for Africa to be sold as slaves. Jackie, of course, will not have it, and works with the girls to fight back and make life as bearable as possible, all the while forming an escape plan. Meanwhile, there is still the problem of the bounty in her head, as she is still considered a pirate. Will she manage to make it home intact to her beloved Jamie? Will all the girls survive?
I think I will have to accept that these kinds of books are simple popcorn books overall. These are the kinds of books where the good guys always win and the bad guys lose, meanwhile the good guys always survive. Jackie herself always manages to do the right thing, with little consequences if that right things causes problems for someone else. She is kind hearted, and her friends are loyal to her almost to a fault. When it comes to survival aboard the Bloodhound I thought she got lucky a few too many times. She seemed a little too resourceful, making it a stretch that she and the girls would be able to fair as well as they did. It almost feels as though if she were trapped on a desert island with nothing but bendy straws, duct tape and pipe cleaners, she'd have a ship ready to sail in a week with how resourceful she is.
As for this book itself, well, it just felt too much like filler. With the exception of the school girls having to come out of their shells, and see Jackie as the resourceful girl she is, nothing really changes. It also ends on a cliffhanger in essentially the same spot Jackie was in before the book began. Also, the author seems to unnecessarily stretch out the book by having Jackie going into ‘bedtime' stories, which are various adventures she had as a member of the Rooster Charlie Gang. This means that I did not really feel anything by the end of the book.
This makes me want to rate it a three out of five. It was a fun book to listen to as always, and that elevates it for me from a two. The audiobook was, again, excellent! It is just a shame the narrator had such little to work with this time around. I'll still be reading the series, but I think I'll wait a while before I do.
