Wow, wow, wow, what a hauntingly beautiful, fascinating story. Based on events that actually happened, Pelican Girls follows women who traveled from a French hospital to the French colony La Louisiane to marry the settlers there. I had no idea that this happened, and reading about the conditions that the women faced was incredibly difficult, but Julia Malye did a phenomenal job at building this world and placing the reader directly in it. It’s clear that Malye did her research for this book, which helps to really underscore the terrible things some of these women went through. Her writing is poetic and beautiful, and she expertly crafts the atmosphere of all the settings in this book—Paris, the Atlantic crossing, Louisiana, and southern Illinois. There are times where the prose feels a bit cumbersome and flowery, but I appreciated how it forced me to slow down and sit with this piece of history that isn’t really talked about.

Her characters are all extremely compelling. I found the relationship between Geneviève and Charlotte to be particularly interesting, and I adored Pétronille. I was so invested in all of their stories and I enjoyed watching them move apart and then back together again as time and life went on. I found the opening chapter from the Superioress’s point of view particularly fascinating because it does a great job at setting the scene for the whole novel. I also quite enjoyed Utu’wv Ecoko’nesel’s chapter because of the insight it provided regarding the relationship between the French colonizers and Native Americans.

It feels strange to say I enjoyed this book because so much of what happens is so terrible, but Pelican Girls is so well-written that I did enjoy the reading experience. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn something new, and I appreciated that by the end, the three women had gained agency over their lives in their own ways and developed strong bonds with each other, showing the importance of community. I’m looking forward to revisiting this one, and exploring Malye’s other work, in the future.

The Sunken City had so much potential and I’m annoyed that it fell flat in so many ways. The concept is right up my alley: 17th century Caribbean pirates with a secret world underwater full of mer-people. But everything went wrong after the 17th century pirates left the scene. I’m not gonna get into how wrong the idea that Amare would have perfect grammar and speech from learning how to read despite living around pirates and their incorrect grammar her whole life, but what I will get into that was the start of my confusion with this book is the fact that the world above water is set in colonial times…but the underwater world is set in present day? Imagine my confusion the first time I read that Amare was dressed in a miniskirt and given a fake ID for a night out at the club in the Sunken City. I wanted pirates! I wanted an oceanic fantasy story with a purely historical setting! Ugh. The author gives an explanation for this: in short, the ocean people are more advanced than humans because they didn’t have to go through adapting to land when the two species split off from their common aquatic ancestor. As a result, the underwater world understands germ theory, genetics, and gay people. I guess that makes sense, but I didn’t like the dissonance between the historical landlubbing world and the modern underwater world.

Another thing that I didn’t love about this book is the fact that the underwater people are not mermaids. They have limbs like humans (bringing back the actual ridiculousness of the evolution theory), and the water in the city is “thinned” so it’s easier for them to walk. Just make them fish people! The underwater people had all kinds of other fish-like features (colorful skin, etc.), so I appreciated that creativity, but I don’t understand why you would construct a fantasy world based on an underwater society and not fully commit to a more aquatic anatomy.

My last major ick with this book (that really should have indicated I wouldn’t enjoy it that much) is that the romance plotline is a love triangle…between two brothers. You’ve already barely got me at love triangle—add in that it’s between two brothers and you’ve completely lost me. It’s predictable (the main character always goes for the bad boy/broody/mysterious brother) and just plain gross to me (my necessary caveat here is that my long-term boyfriend has a brother and I just could never, ever, ever, ever see myself entertaining any kind of love triangle situation between them in the real world and even thinking about it is way too icky for me so I’m gonna stop now).

I basically only finished this book because it was a book club pick and I didn’t get my hands on the other pick for the month until the day before our meeting, and I didn’t want to show up without having finished anything. I’m somewhat curious about how the series ends, but I also feel like I have enough of an idea that I probably won’t return to this series. I’d rather spend my time finding a historical fantasy that actually satisfies all my pirate and mermaid desires.

As a life-long Survivor fan, reading this book was a no-brainer for me. The concept was super fascinating to me, especially since I feel like I’ve become more aware of the amount of storytelling in reality TV as I’ve gotten older. Because so many people were fighting to be the dominant storyteller, there were some interesting character studies happening here. I found Beck’s character to be particularly compelling and I enjoyed her chapters the most. I really sympathized with her desire for redemption and creating the underdog story (those are typically my favorite on shows like Survivor). Kent was much less sympathetic to me, but Stephen Fishbach did a great job of developing his character and making his motivations feel understandable and timely in a society where youth is constantly shown as the pinnacle of life in media.

The main thing I didn’t enjoy about this book is the length. A third of it could have been cut out and it probably would have been just as impactful. I appreciate that the length of the book emphasizes the desperation that the contestants feel, but it felt like the book was dragging at certain points because it felt so drawn out.

Overall, this was a super entertaining read and perfect for summer with its thrilling plot and hot, humid setting. I’ll definitely be thinking twice now about perspectives and storytelling when watching reality TV after reading this!