piratequeen

This is one of those books that I read and enjoy as an adult but wish I had discovered as a teen. This would have had a tremendous impact on my teenaged self.

Almost as much as a romance, this is a story about Jane crafting an identity for herself. As a heroine, Jane is almost ridiculously passive in the beginning of the story. Her mother is overbearing and domineering. "She has a lot of opinions, which is restful, as that way I don't have to have many of my own." Her friends are all implied to be much stronger personalities than Jane, even the oft-mentioned but never-seen Chloe and Davideed. She is content to go with the flow, happy to let others take the lead.

That's what makes her sudden actions in the middle of the book so powerful, first going to the EM headquarters, and then selling her possessions to try and buy Silver back from Egyptia and Clovis. And oh, Clovis. First I hated him, but I grew to love him too, by the end of the book.

I almost cried reading the last chapter at work. Beautiful, not only what happens with the ouija board, but just... Jane has grown so much as a character from the beginning. She has a backbone now. I'm almost sad that we don't get to see what Demeta makes of the new Jane. Jain.