Allan Baillie

Representation: First Australian characters
Trigger warnings: Physical assault and injury, blood, grief and loss depiction, murder, death of a father in the past and other people
Score: Five points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

The First Voyage is inaccurate at best, and cultural appropriation at worst.

I saw this book hiding in the historical shelves and after reading a book in the same genre as this (and not enjoying it) I hoped that this would be a better one so I picked it up and finally read it. It was but only by a small margin and because the narrative has so many flaws outweighing the positive aspects I won't consider rereading this. It starts with the main character Bent Beak who doesn't have a last name (the only other book that has a name system like this is the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver) living in what is now Timor-Leste (for some reason the book calls it Timor. Why?)

Here's where the flaws surface: I couldn't relate to any of the characters in the novel considering it kills off characters left, right and centre like it's nobody's business. Really? I guess it's an effort to reduce character soup as there were a lot of characters (whose names I forgot for some of them) and it could've been longer since it's less than 200 pages (now don't get me wrong. A book can be under 200 pages and still be outstanding but not every book can pull that off.) The one I read couldn't do so successfully because it left me wanting more out of it than what it offered. But here's the biggest issue: the book would be better off if someone parallel to the characters wrote it rather than someone dissimilar to them. The fact that the afterword used the term Aborigine (which is outdated and could mean anything) doesn't sit right with me. If it used a term like Indigenous Australian it would've been better.… (meer)

Flynn var på ganska dåligt humör för att han skulle behöva passa sin lillasyster på stranden. Men så hittar han en gammal packlår, guppande bland klipporna. För Flynn blev låren ett piratskepp, och han själv en piratkapten som seglade iväg från alla tråkigheter hemma, framförallt från pappa som var så nyckfull och orättvis.

Försent insåg Flynn att starka strömmar dragit i väg med låren och att han, Sally och katten hjälplöst var på drift till havs.

Flynn får plötsligt ansvar för både sitt och Sallys liv, och han får en oväntad styrka och vilja att överleva. Han får också lära sig respekt för sin modiga lillasyster, och pappas problem blir också klart för honom.

Detta är både en gastkramande äventyrsberättelse och en känslig skildring av spänningarna inom en familj.… (meer)