Libertarian Fiction Book Club discussion

DarkShip Thieves by Sarah Hoyt is written in first-person perspective. I don't often read books in that POV but I haven't had trouble with them in the past. I have to admit that Hoyt's POV character, Thena, annoyed me a bit at first.

I think part of the problem is that I didn't realize right away that the main character, Thena, is 19 years old and that the novel is intended for a YA audience. Thena comes off at first as self-absorbed and perhaps excessively self-confident, which her age and the book's intended audience make more understandable. One thing that annoyed me was her sarcastic pet name for her father, Daddy Dearest, when she saw him as anything but. It's kind of juvenile, but then, Thena's a rich rebellious teenager.

I persevered and gradually Thena began to grow on me. And Thena does grow as a person over the course of the book. I've found Darkship Thieves to be a fun read.

One drawback to having a single first-person POV character is that we don't really get to see what's so bad about Thena's father for a long time. We also don't get to see much of how the rest of Earth, those not part of the ruling elite, live. This limits the effect of contrasting the political, economic, and cultural differences between Earth and Eden in the novel. The stakes are more personal -- Thena-centric.

I'll go into the politics of the novel more in another post.

Did you have the same reaction to Thena?