Grasp Under The Jolly Roger: Being An Account Of The Further Nautical Adventures Of Jacky Faber (Bloody Jack, #3) Fabricated By L.A. Meyer Depicted In Electronic Format
is my favorite by far in the series, There is tons of dramatic irony and tons of playful romance, which I love, Also this is the one where the characters are mostly at sea and all of the adventure deals with pirateing, It is a great read, Yet again, Jacky gets into trouble by overreacting and doing the first thing that comes to her mind, When she finally sees Jaimy again with another girl, she overacts and runs for it in her jockey gear as a boy, She gets caught by a pressgang and sent to the HMS Wolverine where there is crude captain that has more in mind for her than signing her up as a midshipman.
There she slowing earns the respect of the crew and hoping that the captain stays sick and stays away from her, From there her adventures continue from that ship to another as she was then aledge to be a dreaded pirate, Once again, this book is so enjoyable of seeing Jacky's crazy adventures, Yarrr!
Seriously, it's about time Jacky Faber did some pirating, I've been waiting for it since the first book, This book is the best of the series so far, in my opinion the backdrop and pace match up perfectly with Jacky Faber's inexhaustible energy and irritatingly numerous talents, which takes some of that Mary Sue edge off and makes her even more likeable.
Instead of picking up right where we left off, this one begins a few months after the end of sitelinkCurse of the Blue Tattoo.
Jacky is freshly returned to her home city and country after a cruise on a whaling ship where she apparently managed to serve as both midwife and surgeon without any prior experience, and earned the burning passion and undying devotion of a strapping Quaker lad, besides, and goes in search of her lost love, Jamie Fletcher.
Through a series of misunderstandings that arise directly from Jacky's incorrigible nature, though, she ends up back at sea underneath a corrupt, insane British captain.
Utilizing her usual blend of spunk, derringdo, and unbelievable luck, she not only avoids a dismal fate aboard the H, M. S. Wolverine, but begins to realize her cherished wish of being master and commander of a globecrossing merchant ship, Well, globecrossing privateer ship, but its a step in the right direction, and more exciting in any event,
Im going to pause here and point out that as this book begins, Jacky Faber isyears old, While I and you too, I'm sure had plenty of grand schemes and cherished wishes brewing at that age, the crowning achievement I had attained thus far was successfully growing fiveeighths of a goatee.
Plundering French merchant ships, establishing my own business, and breaking the hearts of every woman that crossed my path weren't quite on the agenda yet.
Just wanted to point out that contrast,
Anyway, just as things finally start looking up for Jacky, she finds herself betrayed and hunted by some of the same sailors she once served with.
Now, she must find a way to avoid the hangmans noose that has dogged her steps since her childhood on the streets of London, and save her new crew from the same fate.
As much as I liked the first two books, this one really felt like the payoff I was waiting for, right from my initial look at the spiffy cover art of Jacky with a tricorne hat lowered over her brow, triumphantly waving the Jolly Roger.
Not only is Jacky back at sea after the strangelypaced adventures on land from the last book, but we skip over most of the daytoday nautical lore and get right to the good stuff: shiptoship combat, boarding parties, and daring port jailbreaks by bands of Irish privateers.
The story is essentially presented in two acts: in the first, Jacky ends up commanding a British warship, and in the second, her own pirate ship captained by none other than Liam Delaney, her "sea father" from the first book.
Between the frenetic action sequences, the reunions with beloved friends at all points in the story, and the proficiency with which Meyer makes us want to cheer for Jacky, it's much harder to nitpick on the same problems in this book that exist in the previous two.
You know, small things, like how ayearold girl manages to take command of a British warship in the first place, or why everybody she meets wants to dedicate their lives and service quite literally to her simply because she's nice to them.
I found myself more forgiving this time around, because Jacky Faber is a pirate queen, god damn it, and pirate queens are super awesome.
My only problem here is that this book seemed to me like a great high point to finish the tale, The story could have ended happily in highflying, bombastic, Jacky Faberish style, . . and yet, at the end of the book, we seem to be headed back into territory similar to the last book, Well okay. It's YA, which means that continuing episodes with a familiar, sympathetic character is par for the course, And Jacky is noticeably maturing and changing, so further adventures are definitely welcome, I'm just feeling a new sense of caution as I head into the next installment, because I've been burned by series that go on too long way too many times before.
On the other hand, there is a definite pulp quality to these stories, which Meyer himself alludes to through the plot device of Amy Trevelyne's book, published throughout England by the time this book begins.
The fictional book retells the events of sitelinkBloody Jack, and not only reveals too much of Jacky's history to the general public to make her entirely comfortable, but also encourages even more fanciful exaggerations and distortions of her exploits by those who read it.
This actually made it easier for me to dismiss my criticisms of Jacky's character, and accept her for what she is: a temptress, girl of action, and folk hero, in the vein of all good escapism.
Warning: spoilers ahead
Let me start off by saying I love the Bloody Jack series, In terms of a YA Historical Fiction series, I cant think of any other series that even compares to Bloody Jack, So even though I love the series and gave this bookstars, this review is probably going to be pretty complainy, The first two in the series were easilystars, throw them on my Favorites shelf, and sing their praises to anyone who will listen.
This book didnt quite live up to the first two, so Im not complaining that the book is bad, Im mostly complaining about why I don't think this book is as good as the first two and why it deserves onlyinstead of.
I might be shouting into the void a little bit here because Im not sure how many people are still reading this series, but here it goes anyway.
I think my biggest disappointment with the book is that it just has a different feel than the first two, The first two books felt like two parts of a cohesive storyline that was actually going somewhere, This book feels like the beginning of a serialization that can go on indefinitely, if that makes any sense, This became evident at the very beginning when the author retconned Jackys age, In the first book, Jacky spends two years on board the Dolphin and when she is discovered to be a girl the ships doctor guestimates she is.
So she isat the end of Bloody Jack, and then Curse of the Blue Tattoo takes course over an entire year, meaning that even if you are being lenient with the numbers at the start of Under the Jolly Roger Jacky would be at least, but Jacky states that she isand that the beginning of Bloody Jack took place about two years earlier, when it really should be three years earlier.
It feels like the author did this to keep Jacky around/indefinitely while the series goes on, which is irritating,
Another problem that I had with this book had to do with Jacky herself, Personally, I think Jackys character is most endearing when shes out of
her element and forced to rely on her cleverness to adapt to difficult surroundings.
I find Jacky much less endearing when shes in her element doing something we already know shes good at, because that's when her Mary Sue reading goes off the chart.
The first two books centered on Jacky being thrown into unfamiliar territory, whereas very little of this book has Jacky in any situation that helps her grow as a character.
/of the story has Jacky captaining her own ship, and as Captain everything Jacky does is perfect and clever and everyone she comes across is in awe of her and admires her.
It made the story boring to be honest, and the entire middle portion of this book felt like repetitive filler, With the first two books, I felt like I couldnt put them put them down whereas with this book there were times I had to force myself to read it just to get through the long slog of endless pirating.
While were on the subject of Jacky, Im also kind of bothered by her sexuality, It seems like the author wants to have it both ways: have Jacky be a philanderer who flirts with everyone and whom no one can resist, but also have Jacky be a chaste and innocent girl saving herself for her one true love.
I wish he would have just committed to one, because its contradictory to have Jacky say one thing and then do the complete opposite.
In this book Jacky has pledged to be done with romance entirely because shes angry at Jaimy, but then still kisses three other guys, flirts with boys in her crew, and even initiates sex with Robin but of course theyre interrupted at the last moment because it is, after all, a YA book.
I wouldnt care if Jacky was a shameless seductress who made out with every character who caught her eye honestly I feel like this would be natural for her character.
I also wouldnt care if Jacky was completely chaste and had no romantic interests at all, But its weird to have her constantly flip flopping between the two,
There were some things that I liked about this book, I liked the beginning bit where Jacky is pressed into service on the Wolverine, The concept of press gangs is so interesting and Im glad the author included that, I also loved that fact that Jackys sea dad Liam made a reappearance, because I love his character and his and Jackys relationship is so sweet.
I also feel like Im in the minority here, but Im not that bothered by Jacky and Jaimys relationship, It will be annoying if it continues to not make any real progress for much longer, though,
The last few chapters of this book really picked up and were a reminder to me of just how good this series can be.
The ending actually had me on the edge of my seat, Its just disappointing that the rest of the book couldnt be that way, too, Im interested to keep reading and see where the series goes, Will it deteriorate into a mindless, serialized adventure series Or is Under the Jolly Roger simply a lower point and the other books will return to the quality I enjoyed in the first two titles Im leaning toward the former, unfortunately, but Ill still read and probably enjoy the rest of the books.
This series is, simply put, AWESOME, Full stop. Listening to the audiobooks for this series is unbelievably entertaining,
To put this in perspective, I listened to this book on an eighteen hour drive from Massachusetts to South Caroline, Sixteen hours of that very long drive passed in the pleasant and wondrous presence of Jacky Faber, L, A. Meyer and Katherine Kellgren.
If this book can entertain on that grueling a trip through traffic and rainstorms and combating sleepiness You've got a gem, Meyer does it again with another great addition to the Jacky Faber series, It starts off a bit slow because it feels like we are getting repetitive information but once the nautical action starts unfolding, the flow picks back up.
"Under The Jolly Roger" is probably my favorite book of the series so far, What mischief will Jacky find herself in next The reading continues, A pirate at heart, unlikely heroine Jacky Faber returns to sea in a truly swashbuckling tale filled with good humor, wit, and courage, After Leaving the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston under dire circumstances, of course Jacky boards a whaling ship bound for London, where she hopes to find her beloved Jaimy.
But things don't go as planned, soon she is off on a wild misadventure at sea, She thwarts the lecherous advances of a crazy captain, rallies the sailors to her side, and ultimately gains command of a ship in His Majesty's Royal Navy.
But Jacky's adventures don't end there, . . soon she is being called a pirate, and there's a price on her head! Another excellent book by L, A. Meyer. Jacky manages to find her way back to England only to mistake a lady Jaimy is with as his girlfriend, when it is instead his cousin.
On the way back to her hotel, she is mistaken for a boy again and put onto a press gang and she ends on another of His Majesty's ships as a sailor.
She makes the best of it and eventually by a total freak accident ends up captain of the same ship and does some privateering in the name of the crown and gets her own ship.
I thought one of her best ideas yet was to make Liam, her sea dad from the first book, her captain in therd book.
I like that there was another girl who wanted to go adventuring like Jacky, and that she finally met up with Jaimy and he's still in love with her and visa versa.
She's back to America for the next book and in another scrape as usual, which I'm sure she'll figure out, I'm only frustrated that my library system only had one copy of theth book which is missing so I'll have to do an ILL to read the next book in the series.
This book is my favorite the series, It gives women a little less of a fragile sense and more of a indestructable yet vulnerable headstrongness that I truly love, Definately a favorite. .