You all… this book… 🤩🤩🤩🤩

I just devoured this and wish I would have read it sooner! It was beautiful and had all of the elements that I like in a fantasy story. I find that I seem to like pirate/water stories the more I read them and this one was perfect!

I can seriously picture this beautiful, underwater world and I loved all of the unique elements written in to this story along with the many surprises. The supporting characters are well written and I love that after growing up without girlfriends, Amare has two very loyal ones by then end of the book. It was fun to watch their friendships grow!

The best part though, is that Noyes perfectly writes the love interests. There is one clean cut and one dark, morally grey character. Of course my twisted heart is rooting for the darker hero but we will see!

Read this if you like:
🏴‍☠️ A Dark, morally grey character
🏴‍☠️ Hidden Identity
🏴‍☠️ Pirates of the Caribbean meets high fantasy (a dream, I know!)

"The Sunken City" is the last fantasy I read. As a matter of fact, I had no expectations and was pleasantly surprised by the book. Many thanks to BookSirens for the copy provided.

Amare grew up on a pirate ship. Her parents died when she was young and she was raised among pirates. After a terrible storm, Amare finds himself in an amazing underwater world. There are strange sea people in the depths of the sea, and besides them there are also those who use magic. Thus, Amare turns out to be a princess of one of the underwater cities, her father is alive, one of the most famous witches is on her heels, and to top it all off, she is part of some prophecy that does not bode well.

I liked the image of Amara. She was raised by men. Female habits are foreign to her and when she finds her first friends it is difficult for her to trust them. But they are great. I really liked the way they contrasted with each other, and their friendship with Amare was very good. Amare has a typical temperament for teenagers, but she is also very strong. I really liked how the author slowly reveals her strengths and weaknesses. Although she hides behind a mask, she actually has a tender side. We see how, in addition to trying to find her place in this new world, she also fights her demons.

Of course, there is also the love drama, which is very similar to the one from "The Vampire Diaries" - the good and the bad brother. I don't mind the bad characters we learn to love in the course of the story, but here I didn't particularly like Lucas. Finn, however, I liked and I'm sure that the author can play a lot with his character and reveal to us what's going on behind his restrained facade. A lot of twists and turns await us in the next two books. I really liked Maoke, the pirate witch, and I can't wait to see what happens to her.

If it didn't become clear, I really liked the book. The world the author has built is interesting and exciting and has great potential for a great series. I like books that include a water element. And also, the magic is presented in an interesting way and we manage to touch its various manifestations through the characters who possess it. I am looking forward to the next books and I am convinced that the author will break my heart at some point, but I hope for a beautiful ending.

I really enjoyed this book! I got a lot of the vampire diaries vibes from it (110% not complaining, may be team Damon for once in my life), and I thought the world building was phenomenal! I am really looking forward to the other two books in the series coming out this year, and I can’t wait for see what is in store!

You won’t be able to put this down- great read. Looking forward to the sequel. You’ll be captivated from the first page until the last. Wonderful story line and plot.

DNF at 33%

Let me start off by saying that I really thought this was going to be one of my new favorite reads.

Part 1 really pulled me in. The pacing was great, if a little more on the leisurely side, but that really added to the atmosphere for me. The prose was compelling and beautiful -- it felt like I was listening to an amazing storyteller as Amare narrated her life growing up aboard the Moonshadow. In this part of the book, her emotions, prejudices, and motivations are crystal clear - we know exactly how ambitious she is, we can really feel how much she loves pirating, and we get a good idea of how she handles conflict. She's 17 and has only had one chance to interact with someone her age and is basically hidden belowdecks, so while her voice does read as much more youthful compared to some other 17 year old YA characters, she struck me as insightful, capable, and strategic. I was excited to read how Amare would deal with her internalized sexism and her superstitions about and prejudice against witches:

"When I bled for the first time, I thought it was witchcraft [...] An hour later, it hadn’t stopped. Two hours. Two days. Nothing. That’s when I started to panic. Six days passed before the bleeding finally stopped. Six days of hidden laundry washes, of bloody cloth thrown off the stern and left for the sharks. I was in a state. Did I tell Omar? The ailment was clearly the result of magic; how else could a person bleed for six days straight with no clear cause? And was I its victim or its source? Then, three weeks later, it happened again. And again the next month. And again. No one explained menstruation to me. Why would a boat full of drunken men think to tell a growing girl such things? It may have been prudent to alert the Captain to the potential presence of magic on his boat, but it also posed a risk—as the only woman aboard, the men might well think the magic came from me. That I cursed myself. And if I accidentally cursed myself to bleed for a week straight, Lord only knows what I might do to them."

Then Part 2 happened, and I felt like I was reading a completely different book. Here's where I started getting vibes of a colonial and orientalist perspective -- why is it that the bad guys (trying to avoid spoilers here) and monsters in the book are named after words from African languages?

Even with the orientalist and racist undertones, I was willing to hold out hope -- it's not like consuming problematic media is anything new. But the banter and interactions between Amare and Finn had me cringing so bad from secondhand embarrassment, and the enemies to lovers dynamic that was being set up between them felt really contrived. Amare, who grew up on a ship climbing ladders and ropes and all the ship things, all of a sudden starts literally tripping as soon as Finn shows up in the story. And of course, he catches her when she falls, with, of course, a resigned sigh, since she's just a silly princess now I guess:

"Then I trip. Finn catches my arm without even looking. He sighs and pushes me back to vertical."
What exactly are we celebrating here? The fact that Finn can remain upright? That he has average spatial awareness? I've read so many similar scenes in books contrasting and glorifying men's ability to navigate the world (like, literally just remain upright) while women stumble to be saved. Then there were the legit tantrums Amare started throwing, which felt so out of line with the way she dealt with conflict in Part 1, so she came off as really immature, attention-seeking, and pretty annoying.

Based on how amazing Part 1 was, I have a feeling there will be great scenes ahead in this series, but the bad parts are bad enough that I refuse to spend any more hours of my life on this.