Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer

I can't decide if I liked this book or not. I did like the main plotline, about a girl who becomes a ship's boy and hides her true identity to escape her hard street urchin life in London. I loved the details about her life in London and on the ship--it all sounded so hopeless, but Mary/Jacky was so matter-of-fact about it all that it seemed like it wasn't as bad as it really was. It was interesting to learn more about what it really would have been like living on a ship some 200 years ago. I also totally didn't expect the twist towards the end, when Jacky gets marooned after taking a ride on a kite (haha!) and has to fend for herself on an island and then helps to rescue her ship from pirates, and I liked that.

The main thing I didn't like was that the book was way more bawdy and open about sex than I would have thought (I kind of thought this was a middle-grade or YA book--I guess I could see it being YA but it seemed more sexual in a few places than you normally see). There's no actual sex but some talking about it. But I guess that's kind of appropriate for a book about sailors? I didn't really buy the whole romance between Jacky and Jamie, but I'm always skeptical about that anyway.

All that aside, the narration on this audiobook really was fantastic. The narrator was amazing at accents and did an amazing job at Jacky's London street urchin accent. I really enjoyed listening to it and that's half of the reason why I think I might listen to the next one (and, because it's set in a girl's finishing school and any of the bawdy stuff will probably be at a minimum).