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A review by kashvm
Drift House: The First Voyage by Dale Peck
2.0
I've been meaning to read this for the longest time because the cover and the concept reminded me a lot of Fablehaven by Brandon Mull - a couple of children are sent to live with an eccentric family member whom they don't know, but whose property (house / boat) ends up being related to magic / magical creatures.
Unfortunately, while I'm still glad I read this, I didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. My main issue with the novel came from the fact that the children's Uncle didn't play any role, really, in the adventure. He supposedly knows little-to-nothing about the boat he inherited, and while I understand that this fascilitates a way for the children to be thr driving force in the narrative, it made his character feel almost unnecessary. I would have much rather preferred if he'd actively been teaching the children about the boat and it's history, and then he gets put in danger and it's up to them to rescue him and fix things with their newfound knowledge and training.
Instead, most of the elderly wisdom and guidance that Susan and Charles get provided come from their youngest brother Murray, who gets himself into a reincarnation time paradox and uses his "travelling back to the past to stop horrible things from ending" powers where convenient to keep the plot moving. The trouble with having such a young character become the source of wisdom and experience due to time-travel is that as a result, we never get a sense of who Murray actually is as a person. Of course, he's like, 5, so he still has time to develop a stronger personality, but while we know things about Susan and Charles from the way they bicker over language and interests, we know virtually nothing about Murray, which meant that I found it hard to connect to anything he did or told us.
There were other aspects of the book that I enjoyed:
1) President Wilson the sarcastic, intelligent parrot
2) The depicition of mermaids as evil and kinda gross
3) The reapperance of Pierre Moran
but there were also a number of things I found problematic:
1) the repeated slave jokes (none of which were funny)
2) Mario / Murrary's future self appearing on a flying carpet in a turban - I get the flying carpet, fine, it's magic, but was the turban really necessary? it felt a bit culturally inappropriate.
and some things I just found annoying:
1) The other characters constantly referenced how unique and special Susan and Charles were, but they seemed like pretty ordinary children
2) The children's uncle not being able to remember the name of the dumbwaiter ultimately being a red herring and not relevant to the story?
3) I was listening to the audiobook, and the amount of times these children say one another's names - if I have to listen to Charles and Murray call out to each other one more time... ("Charles! Charles! / Murray! Murray! / Charles!")
Overall, I'm still glad I read it but I think it just wasn't for me.
Unfortunately, while I'm still glad I read this, I didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. My main issue with the novel came from the fact that the children's Uncle didn't play any role, really, in the adventure. He supposedly knows little-to-nothing about the boat he inherited, and while I understand that this fascilitates a way for the children to be thr driving force in the narrative, it made his character feel almost unnecessary. I would have much rather preferred if he'd actively been teaching the children about the boat and it's history, and then he gets put in danger and it's up to them to rescue him and fix things with their newfound knowledge and training.
Instead, most of the elderly wisdom and guidance that Susan and Charles get provided come from their youngest brother Murray, who gets himself into a reincarnation time paradox and uses his "travelling back to the past to stop horrible things from ending" powers where convenient to keep the plot moving. The trouble with having such a young character become the source of wisdom and experience due to time-travel is that as a result, we never get a sense of who Murray actually is as a person. Of course, he's like, 5, so he still has time to develop a stronger personality, but while we know things about Susan and Charles from the way they bicker over language and interests, we know virtually nothing about Murray, which meant that I found it hard to connect to anything he did or told us.
There were other aspects of the book that I enjoyed:
1) President Wilson the sarcastic, intelligent parrot
2) The depicition of mermaids as evil and kinda gross
3) The reapperance of Pierre Moran
but there were also a number of things I found problematic:
1) the repeated slave jokes (none of which were funny)
2) Mario / Murrary's future self appearing on a flying carpet in a turban - I get the flying carpet, fine, it's magic, but was the turban really necessary? it felt a bit culturally inappropriate.
and some things I just found annoying:
1) The other characters constantly referenced how unique and special Susan and Charles were, but they seemed like pretty ordinary children
2) The children's uncle not being able to remember the name of the dumbwaiter ultimately being a red herring and not relevant to the story?
3) I was listening to the audiobook, and the amount of times these children say one another's names - if I have to listen to Charles and Murray call out to each other one more time... ("Charles! Charles! / Murray! Murray! / Charles!")
Overall, I'm still glad I read it but I think it just wasn't for me.