The first critique I have over her shamanism is that there was really no effort in exploring Dahomey-culture. Phillis grew up in Dahomey and is a black shaman. Through her own trials and tribulations she ends up in Jamaica where she owns and then frees a slave named Phillis. The main character of this book is a white upper-class English women named Nancy. The main theme in this book is about the perils of racism and sexism but that would be a lot more effective if this book wasn’t in fact racist. She makes some choices in her plot and character-building that contradicts some of the themes that are in this story. Where Rees falls-short is through her exploration of themes. The clichés may seem like the book would be boring but Rees writes them in a way that makes the novel feel like an old classic. Pirates! contains all the typical pirate-tropes like marooning, sea storms, sword fighting, and mutiny. Celia Rees is very talented in the realms of poetic word choice and world building and this is what makes this novel engaging, adventurous, and entertaining. Though I’m about to be very critical about this novel I do want to preface by saying that Pirates! is not trash.
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