The Castaways
The Low Down
Title: The Castaways
Author: Iain Lawrence
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Date: 2007
Main Components: Tricks, Schemes and swash-buckling adventures.
Interesting Detail: This book is up for a Red Maple award
The Castaways by Iain Lawrence gave me some troubles when trying to come up with a review that wasn't too harsh, but by the end of the book I was saved from having to do that. The Castaways is the story of Tom Tin and his four convict companions who come across a deserted ship. Of course, they take the opportunity and climb aboard, no knowing whether this boat is a blessing or a curse. After they pick up two castaways, Mr. Beezley and Mr. Moyle, Tom begins to suspect that these mysterious men he is beginning to hate are hiding something. Tom’s suspicions are confirmed when he overhears them plotting to get rid of him. His companions don’t feel threatened by these men however, that is until the men attempt to sell them all as slaves, a decision that ends with death for some and Tom sailing the ship to London. Once he reaches his destination, Tom searches for a diamond he buried hoping to give its curse to the man that caused his ruin, Mr. Goodfellow. In order to do this though, Tom has to figure out who can be trusted, and get rid of all those he cannot before he can truly be free.
The Castaways was a difficult book to love. Lawrence failed at capturing the reader’s initial attention, making it hard to want to continue the story. Often during the first few chapters I found my mind wandering. The book jumps right into the story with no background information and hardly any character development. This leaves the reader confused and bored at times. There are also some badly worded sentences in the beginning and sentences that are supposed to be exciting just die due to how they were written. An example of this is within the first few pages of the book. Lawrence builds up the suspense by describing a terrible storm that is approaching the ship. He is successful in conveying the characters fear at the approaching storm and their panic for their lives. Unfortunately, this “terrible” storm only lasted for about two very small paragraphs. It almost makes you feel cheated, here you are expecting to have a ruthless sea storm described to you and all you get is a few sentences of how they huddled in the cold as it rained and the ship rocked. The way this book started made me have little hope for it. Another thing that bugged me about it was that often Lawrence used the technical terms of the parts in the ship. When describing where a character was or what they were doing he would use words like ‘fo’c’sle’ and ‘hummock.’ The last thing a reader wants to do is interrupt the story to look up a word just so they could understand what was happening. Yes, it made the book authentic but it also made it confusing. The final thing that really bugged be about this book was the chapter titles. Chapter titles are supposed to make the reader interested and curious as to what was going to happen. In The Castaways, the chapter titles practically give away what is going to happen. For example, chapter seven is titled ‘The Castaways Come Aboard’ and chapter twenty is titled ‘I Find the Stone of Jacob Tin.’ These titles failed to interest me and chapter twenty’s title ruined the mystery and the suspense of whether or not the main character would be able to locate the diamond. Much of this book was a disappointment.
However, not everything about The Castaways was terrible. By the middle of the book I was able to become more interested in the story and finally I was able to piece together some kind of background information. Around the middle, it is almost like Lawrence changed his writing style. The descriptions get better, the action doesn’t fall flat and you are actually able to get caught up in the schemes and betrayal. By the end of the book I didn’t feel so negatively towards it. The ending solves most of the mysteries with only a few things left unanswered. All the important mysteries of the story were solved and those that weren’t leave the reader wondering. I was able to accept that I will never know what happened to some of the characters because they had very small roles in the story and the way the book ended was as if the main characters were just going off to solve the remaining mysteries.
I rate this book 2 late nights out of 5.
Originally, I was going to give it a one or even less, but Lawrence redeemed himself with the ending and improved his writing. It took a while for him to make the story exciting but when he did it was fairly good. Maybe I wasn’t able to get into the book because of its genre, as pirate books aren’t my favourite but maybe it was just his style of writing that failed to capture my initial attention. If you enjoy pirate books, I would recommend this book as a light read that is just for something to do as it is no literary masterpiece.
Other Fancy Tidbits
Price: $20.99 or borrow it from MW library
Other Books By Iain Lawrence: The Cannibals, The Convicts, Gemini Summer, B for Buster, The Lightkeeper’s Daughter, Lord of The Nutcracker Men, Ghost Boy and The High Seas Trilogy.
Website: www.iainlawrence.com
Iain Lawrence studied journalism in Vancouver, British Columbia and worked for the small newspapers in the northern part of the province. He currently lives on the Gulf Islands.
Title: The Castaways
Author: Iain Lawrence
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Date: 2007
Main Components: Tricks, Schemes and swash-buckling adventures.
Interesting Detail: This book is up for a Red Maple award
The Castaways by Iain Lawrence gave me some troubles when trying to come up with a review that wasn't too harsh, but by the end of the book I was saved from having to do that. The Castaways is the story of Tom Tin and his four convict companions who come across a deserted ship. Of course, they take the opportunity and climb aboard, no knowing whether this boat is a blessing or a curse. After they pick up two castaways, Mr. Beezley and Mr. Moyle, Tom begins to suspect that these mysterious men he is beginning to hate are hiding something. Tom’s suspicions are confirmed when he overhears them plotting to get rid of him. His companions don’t feel threatened by these men however, that is until the men attempt to sell them all as slaves, a decision that ends with death for some and Tom sailing the ship to London. Once he reaches his destination, Tom searches for a diamond he buried hoping to give its curse to the man that caused his ruin, Mr. Goodfellow. In order to do this though, Tom has to figure out who can be trusted, and get rid of all those he cannot before he can truly be free.
The Castaways was a difficult book to love. Lawrence failed at capturing the reader’s initial attention, making it hard to want to continue the story. Often during the first few chapters I found my mind wandering. The book jumps right into the story with no background information and hardly any character development. This leaves the reader confused and bored at times. There are also some badly worded sentences in the beginning and sentences that are supposed to be exciting just die due to how they were written. An example of this is within the first few pages of the book. Lawrence builds up the suspense by describing a terrible storm that is approaching the ship. He is successful in conveying the characters fear at the approaching storm and their panic for their lives. Unfortunately, this “terrible” storm only lasted for about two very small paragraphs. It almost makes you feel cheated, here you are expecting to have a ruthless sea storm described to you and all you get is a few sentences of how they huddled in the cold as it rained and the ship rocked. The way this book started made me have little hope for it. Another thing that bugged me about it was that often Lawrence used the technical terms of the parts in the ship. When describing where a character was or what they were doing he would use words like ‘fo’c’sle’ and ‘hummock.’ The last thing a reader wants to do is interrupt the story to look up a word just so they could understand what was happening. Yes, it made the book authentic but it also made it confusing. The final thing that really bugged be about this book was the chapter titles. Chapter titles are supposed to make the reader interested and curious as to what was going to happen. In The Castaways, the chapter titles practically give away what is going to happen. For example, chapter seven is titled ‘The Castaways Come Aboard’ and chapter twenty is titled ‘I Find the Stone of Jacob Tin.’ These titles failed to interest me and chapter twenty’s title ruined the mystery and the suspense of whether or not the main character would be able to locate the diamond. Much of this book was a disappointment.
However, not everything about The Castaways was terrible. By the middle of the book I was able to become more interested in the story and finally I was able to piece together some kind of background information. Around the middle, it is almost like Lawrence changed his writing style. The descriptions get better, the action doesn’t fall flat and you are actually able to get caught up in the schemes and betrayal. By the end of the book I didn’t feel so negatively towards it. The ending solves most of the mysteries with only a few things left unanswered. All the important mysteries of the story were solved and those that weren’t leave the reader wondering. I was able to accept that I will never know what happened to some of the characters because they had very small roles in the story and the way the book ended was as if the main characters were just going off to solve the remaining mysteries.
I rate this book 2 late nights out of 5.
Originally, I was going to give it a one or even less, but Lawrence redeemed himself with the ending and improved his writing. It took a while for him to make the story exciting but when he did it was fairly good. Maybe I wasn’t able to get into the book because of its genre, as pirate books aren’t my favourite but maybe it was just his style of writing that failed to capture my initial attention. If you enjoy pirate books, I would recommend this book as a light read that is just for something to do as it is no literary masterpiece.
Other Fancy Tidbits
Price: $20.99 or borrow it from MW library
Other Books By Iain Lawrence: The Cannibals, The Convicts, Gemini Summer, B for Buster, The Lightkeeper’s Daughter, Lord of The Nutcracker Men, Ghost Boy and The High Seas Trilogy.
Website: www.iainlawrence.com
Iain Lawrence studied journalism in Vancouver, British Columbia and worked for the small newspapers in the northern part of the province. He currently lives on the Gulf Islands.
posted by Laura G at
3:43 PM
1 Comments:
With all respect, I believe you are being unfair to your readers by reviewing a book you clearly don't understand. Your criticism of The Castaways is largely a reflection of your ignorance of the story and the truths within it. Most glaringly, you neglect to point out that The Castaways is the third volume of a trilogy. Of course it begins by jumping right into the story; it's already two thirds of the way through it. Other reviewers did not have trouble picking up the story at that point, but then neither did they stumble over such words as f'o'c's'le. That you don't know what a f'c'c's'le is, and don't have the patience to look it up, is hardly the fault of the story. Simalarly, you complain that a storm at sea is described in only two paragraphs, and that it fails to live up to the suspense built by the author. Yet you don't point out that he built the suspense with even fewer words. You should realize that the storm is not importanat to the story, beyond the fact that it drives the hero's boat toward a shore that he is yet to discover. And to condemn a book for its chapter headings is simply absurd.
Ttyle and quality of the writing does not suddenly change halfway through the book. More likely, it was at that point when you found yourself enjoying a story that you were determined not to like.
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