WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE LEAVING ME WITH THAT ENDING?!

OK, OK, OK, deep breaths......

While I think that this set started off very strong, I feel like so much of the background stuff got a little lost which is why I'm knocking it down half a point from previous. I feel like we had a lot of keys introduced that didn't get too much screen time or weren't totally explained (until the little blurb at the back) which I understand we can't have a whole deep dive on each key and how the kids interact with it so it was smart to do a little panel and move on....but I am greedy and I wanted more information. The keys are some of my favorite moments so to have them just in passing made me a little sad and felt like it was glossed over. The next issue was some of the discourse with Tyler and Kinsey with them not only falling out with each other but also with their friend group and love interests. This too felt like it was rushed and we kinda had that whole arc pushed along pretty quickly. I'm sure there were things that needed to be cut that maybe weren't totally meant to, but I feel like because we have these branch off moments that still didn't add much to the story and didn't get their own detailed plot flush out I feel like this set was not as strong as the first. I AM LOCKED IN FOR THIS FINAL SET COMING UP, BECAUSE I AM SO TIRED OF ZACH GETTING THE UPPER HAND.

I honestly can not remember the last time I read a sea tale and I found because of that, this book a nice refreshing pace and a fun time! I feel like I probably would have felt more of an impact if I had ever read Moby Dick, which I have not. Though I do think you can go into this book without having read it, just be aware that it might not be as much of a punch if you are missing that portion of the story/knowledge.

Overall I think I had so many highlighted quotes in this book, and the concept of gender and cross-dressing to defy societal norms of roles was done really well here. It was an amazing book of self exploration and coming into yourself even from a adolescence into adult lens (outside of the possible gender identify expression here). I do feel like because the chapters are relatively short it's easy pacing and quick to read, though if are coming into this book expecting pirates and fast action sea adventure you might be disappointed. I was entertained throughout the whole story, but I feel like if you seeking an epic tale this might not be the best choice.

My only critiques that I have with this book was that the ending felt a little too symbolic and also uncomplete? It was set up in a way that I thought was going to come as a wind down and a discussion of what Ishmaelle life is going to be like after her whaling days and while it does that to some extent it more just leaves this almost open-endedness which I felt was a little strange? The only other issue that I have is the jump to Seneca POV which didn't come with much warning and felt jarring to try to shift focus and also took some time to understand how to decipher what his mental monologue was about since it was almost one giant run on sentence without any punctuation. Maybe that section would be better done in the audio version but reading it was a little rough personally.