Review: “Hostage Three” by Nick Lake

~o~Rating~o~

Synopsis: Amy is forced to take a trip on a yacht with her father and stepmother. Aboard the Daisy May, Amy almost starts to enjoy herself… until one day, the ship is captured by Somalian pirates. The passengers aboard the ship are taken hostage. Amy finds herself drawing closer to one of the pirates, a boy who didn’t want this life any more than Amy wanted hers.

Hmm… lots of mixed feelings about this book. I still don’t know if I liked it. I’m rating this three stars Goodreads style which means it was okay.

My biggest issue with this book was the structure. I understand Nick Lake was trying to be stylistic by not using quotation marks for dialogues, but lack of punctuation bothers me. A lot. I definitely would not have finished this book if it wasn’t for something school related.

Going past structure, Amy bothered me quite a bit too before I started warming up to her. After her mother’s death, Amy desperately seeks her wealthy father’s attention by lashing out (you know, the usual: getting drunk; smoking; piercings; etc). Her behavior in the beginning took away any chance of me liking her but she was developed in a realistic way.

In a cruise with her family, their yacht is captured by Somalian pirates. The book explores the idea of Stockholm Syndrome, or tried to at-least. The romance between Amy and Farouz seemed forced and unrealistic. I don’t know how you can start to like the person who is holding a gun over your head (but to her credit, neither did Amy).

What I really liked was getting to know the pirates. Everyone steals for a reason and theirs is a pretty good one.