The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

It's a problem for me, when I really, really like a book because I am often worried that I won't like the next thing I read by the author anywhere near as much. Example? This book. I was hoping I'd get a female driven adventure in the vein of [b:The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue 29283884 The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1) Mackenzi Lee https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492601464l/29283884.SY75.jpg 49527118] I didn't think that was too much to ask. Instead, I got this mess.So, the first half of the book feels like an over extended prologue where Felicity is just teleporting from one local to the next with how little attention is given to the actual travel. And, compounded on that, the three girls don't actually start traveling together until about the halfway point. Uncoincidentally, I started enjoying the book more once we reached the halfway point.Except for a few issues that made me drop the rating from three stars to two. First, I like big reveals to be foreshadowed. An example of not doing this is [b:Legacy of Light 38358367 Legacy of Light (Effigies, #3) Sarah Raughley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517874257l/38358367.SY75.jpg 60025022]. (One year later, I'm still bitter about this series.) So, if you're going to have a big reveal in the very fabric of the universe you've created, build up to it. Don't just go: btw, there's dragons. No, seriously. Please don't do that. At least not if you want me to like the book.Now that we got that out of the way, let's take characters.Felicity. Oh, Feli, I kind of loved you in Vice and Virtue. Imagine my dismay when I realized I liked the way you played off your brother and little else about you. Felicity is a good character, don't get me wrong, but she is way too serious for me. I like characters that joke - you know, humor under fire or gallows humor? - Felicity is not just not that, she's also quite hard and judge-y. I don't like that.Johanna. Now, this girl, I like. She's not funny, but she is feminine and badass and I just kind of adore her.Sim. Sim is...a plot device. She has very little point or purpose in the story than being a plot device at various times. (Three times, at least, I think.) That was disappointing.And their friendship? Well, I feel something between Johanna and Felicity that might be friendship. I feel something between Sim and Felicity that is a one sided, slight crush. Oh, and general mutual mistrust. I feel nothing between Johanna and Sim. Honestly, Felicity still has more of a bond with Percy than whatever was trying to be built between her and these two girls.Now, about the aro/ace rep. Honestly? I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been told it was there. That's partially because of me and just the way I'm wired. (I don't see romance and marriage as the endgame.) But also, because Felicity is written as being more interested in knowledge than romance and I personally don't see that as a sign of aro-ness. Or ace-ness. If I hadn't heard that Feli was on the aro/ace spectrum - even after thinking she was aro after reading Vice and Virtue - I would have probably had her pegged as a demisexual lesbian. Ymmv, but that's what I saw. There is an ace discussion on page but...it went the same way I always hear they do: the ace person being told ‘you just haven't met the right person yet and/or you need to try it first'. That was gross, by the way, and it was made even worse by it being a supposed sympathetic person that says this.So, in closing, what I loved so much about Vice and Virtue - the adventure and surprising attention to both Percy's illness and Monty's past - (Remaining obscure to avoid tagging this as spoilers.) was strangely absent here. Because, really, the strange colonialism theme could have been handled much more sensitively. (And I'm not even getting into that.)