The Monthly Spotlight: An Indie Review Group discussion

Welcome to 'Week One' of our group reading of Pirate Sea by Kyler Kuehler.

If you're yet to get your copy, you can grab an eBook or paperback from Amazon. For those who don't yet know, there is a free kindle app for tablets and phones - I actually prefer it to my Kindle - so eBooks can be read without investing in an eReader :-)

Just to recap, this week we will be reading and discussing chapters 1-10.

Some ideas for things you might discuss:
* Writing style
* Pacing and structure
* Character development (do you connect with the characters?)
* Dialogue
* Narrative/Plot

Discussions will be open all week. And don't feel you need to have read all 10 chapters to share your thoughts. Feel free to come on here and discuss thoughts as you're having them :-)

I'll start us off with my thoughts on this first half of 'Pirate Sea' -

Things move quickly in this swashbuckling adventure, don't they? But I'm rather fond of the pacing, I think it lends itself well to the intended audience and nature of the story.

I found the action sequences - which focus mostly on James' emotions while watching things unfold - really engaging and sometimes quite thrilling. But for me, the huge pull in this first half of the book was the gritty realism of James' emotions. It would have been easy for Kuehler to avoid this sort of tragedy by creating circumstances in which James is accepted or befriended by these pirates, or even in which he defies the odds to take them all to task. But instead, we watch a boy bereft of parental comfort, who is forced to swallow indignity and abuse in order to survive; reading it as an adult, and a parent, I found it very compelling.

There are a few editing oversights I've noticed, but I don't think they particularly detract in any way from the enjoyment of the book. My only small critique of this half of the book is that the dialogue is sometimes a little awkward or stiff. There are times when it doesn't read as natural, but also didn't appear to be intentionally melodramatic or farcical; this was, though, only upon occasion.

How did you all get on? I really enjoyed this first half! :-)

I’ve now read several chapters and am afraid this book is not for me. It’s full of research errors: privateers and pirates were different things, Spanish Main is a place not a trader, East Indian Trading Company is not a thing—there were many East India (no N) Companies, British, Dutch, etc.—as well as anachronistic language (“quality time”?) and grammatical errors. In general I’m finding it not ready for prime time, sorry. I’d rather not finish so I don’t have to give it a scathing review.

Thanks for your honesty, Abigail! It’s not something I found off putting myself, but I understand we all have different things that can be distracting and ‘take us out of the story’ when reading; it’s hard to enjoy something when you’ve reached that place with a book. I really appreciate you taking the time to try this one :-)

I’ll see you on the Belinda thread as soon as I catch up!

I hate to start my participation in the group with a DNF but like Abigail I am struggling to get beyond some very catchable typos, technical grammar errors and poor prose. I’ve reached 20% but I believe that is as far as I will go. I think this really cries out for impartial editorial eyes as it feels like an early draft. I love pirate shenanigans too so I approached this with enthusiasm, and I usually push on through reservations to complete someone’s hard work. This however did not feel ready to be read.

Hi Martin, no problem, and as I said to Abigail, thank you for your honesty.

The typos and grammatical errors hadn’t escaped my notice. Knowing many indie authors go this alone, and being horribly dyslexic/dyspraxic myself, while I did notice the errors, I didn’t find they detracted from my overall enjoyment of the story and characterisation. However, I can see that perhaps for other people it does very much impact reading enjoyment.

I can only say I’m very sorry if this was a poor first choice. I really wouldn’t have suggested this novella if I thought it would be such a unanimous struggle to enjoy. But I really appreciate you both taking the time to try the book out :-)

My attention was definitely peaked with the beginning of the book. I think Kuehler does a good job introducing us to our main young hero as well as a very brutal opening of him having to watch all of his crewmates get killed and his father burned alive. I think that really sets the scene of what kind of story to expect. It's going to be action packed and violent.

I was happy to see it didn't get too violent/brutal (so far). I don't think I could take watching a teenager get more than just "lashes." I appreciated the internal struggle shown with our main character of having to live on this ship but also hating everything about it and everyone on board.

I can see why OA and Martin labeled it DNF, and respect their choices as not every book is for every reader! To me, Kuehler labeling his novel as YA, gives it a lot of leeway in my mind. I go in not expecting too much but a fun ride, but that doesn't mean that the writing errors and historical misinformation don't takeaway from the story, because they do, but so far for me they haven't taken away from the plot.

The halfway bombshell (spoiler!) of the family drama is an interesting twist. Sounds like the second half of the book will have more than just pirate adventures, but focus more on our hero and his family history and our main villain's history as well.

Hey Robert! Absolutely I think you’re right that the level of violence/grit and the style is appropriate for the intended audience. I believe this book is written for ages 11+ and from my experience beta reading novels/novellas, the writing style is consistent with most other works for that audience.

It’s certainly appropriate to mention the proofreading oversights and errors; this clearly is something that does impact reader enjoyment, and the aim here is to entertain the reader.

It’s something that could really easily be fixed, and I think the narrative structure and character development of this novella means it’s worth the small time investment of the author to go back and polish things a little more. I’ve read many objectively well-written books that were the literary equivalent of eating sandpaper. Bad grammar is easy to fix, a bad story is not. So I hope the author of this book will take encouragement that improving this novella seems, to me, as though it would be an easy task! Perhaps worth updating my review to reflect those issues?

There are some quite adult themes suggested in the text, although never explicitly stated (sexual abuse, prostitution etc.). What did you make of that, considering the intended audience?

Abigail wrote: "Hey Robert! Absolutely I think you’re right that the level of violence/grit and the style is appropriate for the intended audience. I believe this book is written for ages 11+ and from my experienc..."

In my reading so far, I think four stars is what I would give this novel too. (Although it's so hard for me not to give a fellow indie writer five stars no matter what I think about the book, because I know how much work went into it.)

I actually think this is a YA story meant for adults, or at least that's how I read it. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable letting my (imaginary) middle schooler read this novel. It can get pretty explicit at times! Perhaps that's what would make it all the more appealing to YA's as well. I know YA is a very popular adult category, so I'd like to think it was made for adults because I don't think this would ever past muster to be available in any middle school library lol.

As an adult though, those themes don't necessarily take away from my enjoyment of the text. It's stated pretty quickly that it's going to be a gruesome book and this should be expected. I appreciate that the violence starts early to let a reader know what they are getting themselves into instead of some abrupt change halfway through.