I have struggled with pirate books in the past and this one was unfortunately no different for me. Ever since I finished Black Sails, no other pirate content has met my expectations. And this one was even about Anne Bonny and Calico Jack! I really wanted to love it but I just didn't.

This wasn't quite what I was hoping out of a pirate novel, but I'm glad we're getting more stories about lady pirates, especially continuing the legacy of some lesser-known historical figures! I hope girls out there find this book and go down the rabbit hole in search of more lady pirates of history.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sky Pony Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This book sounded absolutely perfect. Pirates? Yes. *Female* pirates? Heeeeck yes. Add a little F/F romance, and I was so sure I would love it. Spoiler alert: I ... didn't. The biggest problem for me was that I didn't realize the focus of the book was going to be on said romance rather than the fun piratey things I was hoping for. It was mostly a case of where expectations just didn't match with reality.

- I thought this book was going to be about pirates, and it was … kind of? But mostly, it was a romance. Had I known that this plot largely focused on the romance and less on the piratey goodness, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. Honestly, this is likely why my rating is so low. I don’t enjoy romance books, for the most part. That’s why I tend to avoid them, unless they come highly recommended by people with similar reading tastes. I couldn’t even get behind this romance, because it felt very much like one party was simply using the other, and it seemed like the book was trying to say that this was just … okay.

- Mary’s character arc was lovely, where she has to go from being what’s expected of her to finding herself. It was sort of like a coming of age, except not quite. For her entire life, everything has depended on her pretending to be something she’s not and can never be, and wow has that left some scars. Little by little, though, she rediscovers the person she actually wants to be, and lets go of the expectations others have placed on her. The transformation was lovely to watch, and she was very easy to root for in that regard.

- For a book about pirates, there’s surprisingly little pirate action … but what little there was, I enjoyed. There’s a little swashbuckling swordplay afoot, which was enjoyable. Mostly, the focus was on the politics of pirates, and that was actually pretty fascinating to watch. It’s quite the struggle. Most of the book, though, I felt like it really dragged, because the focus was on these two women struggling with societal issues, and they weren’t all that interesting to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good social commentary, and it can fit in with other things, but this felt more social commentary than pirate novel, and I thought I was signing up to watch two badass female pirates fall in love. Not listen to a diatribe against the patriarchy.

- I could sympathize with these characters, but none of them really grabbed me. The situations a lot of them end up in suck, and I feel really bad for them. I want better for them just because … well, I’m human, I suppose, and it’s nice for people not to have really crappy lives and to be able to catch a break? But I didn’t feel particularly attached to any of these characters. Mostly, they just frustrated me more than anything because of their choices and whatnot.

The premise for The Unbinding of Mary Reade sounded great and I was very excited. Lady pirates, yes please! It took me a very long time to write this review, I tried to get into this story at multiple occasions. But after trying for about a year, I think we can conclude I will not finish this book. I'm not interested in the characters, and I'm not really interested in the plot either.
I do enjoy historical fiction a lot, but this one was super boring and the alternating time lines didn't do it for me either. The characters didn't seem to have any chemistry and all in all I just didn't like this at all. I would definitely pick up another book about Mary Reade, because her story seems very interesting but this book couldn't keep me engaged for longer than 3 minutes at a time.

did not finish
I couldn't get past 50 pages in this book. The writing was not for me and I didn't like the characters

The premise of this book was strong. A retelling of the true story of a girl who disguised herself as a boy and ended up on the pirate ship, falling in love with Anne Bonny. Unfortunately the execution was lacking.

I'm sorry, but this book was boring. The dialogue felt stilted and there just was no action.

I had the feeling of reading a draft, rather than the finished book.

Still, I liked the idea behind the book.

I have to be honest. I was so, so ready to love this book. A queer lady pirate YA based on actual queer lady pirates? Sign me the heck up! But in actuality, the book never delivered for me. A lot of the history was changed for no discernible reason, there was some plot and behavior that veered dangerously close to the "cheating bisexual" trope, and the protagonist's gender identity was clearly way more complicated than McNamara ever explored, despite setting that up herself. What a disappointment!

Loved the plot, the characters and the pacing!!!! I read the book in a day. Interesting plot and beautiful writing. This is an author I will be reading again!

I was really looking forward to this book, I'm all for f/f relationships in YA fiction, especially historical novels. Pirate novels are not my thing, but I wanted to give this one a chance. It just didn't work for me. It was slow and boring, and frankly, I couldn't stand the characters. Mary just grated on my nerves, she had zero personality and her love interest was a self involved idiot who didn't deserve Mary's devotion. I skimmed the latter half of this one. Not for me at all.

Frustratingly repetitive and needlessly sexist and homophobic. For a book that promises high seas adventures and a f/f romance, this is a let down in almost every way.

Pirates, what can go wrong? Well, apparently this story. I was so excited to read this one, it sounded like the perfect story! Sadly, that's not what happened. This story is very bland.

The Unbinding of Mary Reade is a story of pirates and longing, of adventure and fear, of discovering who you are and being true to that self, even if it puts you in harm's way.

Mary is kind and smart, but lost and lonely. Made to live as a boy for most of her life, she's torn as to what her place in the world will be when she gets older. How is she supposed to continue the charade of being a young man as time goes on? Things are expected of young men once they reach a certain age. And so she runs off with her friend Nat, who only ever knew her as Mark, and they turn to a life on the high seas. But when things go wrong and they end up separated, she wonders what will happen next. Until she sees pirates attack their ship. Until she sees a girl with the pirates, skirts and all with a pistol raised, and Mary knows what to do next. What follows is Mary's hard realization that it isn't so easy, being a woman pirate, and the chance to risk everything for what Mary truly wants in life: to be herself with someone she loves.

It's a rather unconventional sort of story, but then both Mary Reade and Anne Bonny are unconventional young women for the time period. Posing and dressing as a young man, fighting alongside men as pirates and thieves. This is not what proper God-fearing young women did. But what choice did they have? Forced into marriage or worse, unable to be in control of their lives or their futures. After living years as a boy, Mary can't see herself living as a young woman should. Quiet and demure, her opinion given little to no weight. Property of her husband. She's lived a mostly free life as a young man, seen what happens to young women when they're beaten and abused. What's she supposed to do? Keep her head down? Or fight to live the life she wants? This is a work of fiction, but Mary Reade and Anny Bonny were real pirates, real women fighting in a male-dominated space. I'd certainly recommend this to those looking for stories about Mary and Anne that lean more towards the romantic side of their relationship and not so much the piracy.

Oh boy... where do I start with this novel? I so wanted to love it but it just did not work at all. I think the idea was fantastic. It just failed on execution.

I found the story to be quite boring, which is weird because this is a book about PIRATES. But it really just felt like nothing was happening throughout the story; at times, it even felt like a biography than an actual fictional tale. I think this can be attributed to the fact that the characters were very one-dimensional and were hard to connect with. It was hard to distinguish the different voices of the characters because they just didn't really have much of a personality. I think Anne Bonny was developed a little bit better than Mary Reade, but even that is a bit of a stretch. I also didn't love the writing as it was far too juvenile for this type of story. It read more like a middle grade book than a YA fiction novel. It also seemed as if it was just a draft copy and not a full-fledged book. It definitely needed a lot more editing for the story to really shine through.

I don't want to go on and on bashing this novel. Clearly, the author had a really great concept and just wasn't able to follow through with it. Suffice to say that it wasn't what I had wanted or expected. For those reasons, I'm giving it a 1/5 stars.

I am trash for pirates and stuff like that so I was so excited to start this book and it was everything I wanted it to be ! I loved the romance, the setting and I loved Mary Reade I thought she was so much like what we know about her.

This book unfortunately feel very flat for me an did not work at all. I love pirates and pirate history and this just did not work for me

The Unbinding of Mary Reade is an example of a precursor to feminism movement in a fictional history. The author spins a tale about Mary aka Mark Reade, who embarks on a vessel disguised as a man in search of a new life. Exposure is a constant threat that Mary has to contemplate, especially since at sea there is nowhere to run.

What is this book about, really? It’s a glimpse into the previous millennia, where women hold an extremely limited role in society. Rather than about transcending expectations, Mary Reade is offending social, cultural, and religious norms when it comes to being a woman. On top of that, the author adds an LGBTQ+ twist by having the main character attracted to another woman. It’s a struggle both within the characters and on the outside.

In this book, men are generally portrayed as scums (by modern standards). There are some scenes where men make loud, vulgar comments about woman apparently for the woman’s benefit, and it is striking how this is still unchanged in our time. It makes me think that these attitudes are remnants of times when women are valued much less than they are now and went by unappreciated. During these times, their jobs are basically to satisfy men’s lust, bear children, and carry out household chores. Their role in the economy is limited to making clothes, bartending, and working in illegal brothels.

What I don’t enjoy in The Unbinding of Mary Reade is that Anne Bonny plays the role of a helpless damsel whose life revolves around how her man treats her. It probably doesn’t live up to the pirate’s reputation. I mean think about it, for a female pirate to be written down in history (which, at this time, I assume is written by men), she’d have to be able to make it on her own and command the respect from fellow pirates who are mostly men. However, in The Unbinding of Mary Reade, Anne Bonne pretty much sleeps with the boss to get to the top.

This just book just didn’t work for me. I had trouble connecting with the story and characters. That being said Imliked the premise behind the story.

It is misleading to say that The Unbinding of Mary Reade (please note the extra “e”) is based on historical facts since the author, Miriam McNamara plays fast and loose with the so called “truth”. Yes, Mary Read, Anne Bonnie, and Calico Jack Rackham were pirates together, but the timeline is ignored leading to a misleading narrative. What is true is that the illegitimate Mary Read was brought up disguised as her half brother Mark so as to financially benefit off her “grandmother” with the proceeds of her deceit supporting her mother. Eventually she joined the British Military and fought against the French in the Nine Years War. Mary married, settled in the Netherlands, and ran an inn, but after her husband’s early death she once again took up the role as a man and ended up on a ship traveling to the West Indies which was taken hostage by pirates who she gladly joined. She accepted the governor’s pardon in 1718-19 and became a privateer, basically a pirate for the crown, but the ship mutinied and it was at this point she joined the pirates Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny (who also was disguised as a man). Eventually both their true identities were revealed. Ironically, Anne’s father had unsuccessfully forced Anne to take on a boys identity in her youth to hide the fact she was his illegitimate daughter.

While in the book McNamara portrays the two female pirates as roughly the same age, in fact, Mary Read was thirteen to fifteen years older. Of interest is the gender fluid nature of both these female buccaneers who seemed to take pleasure from men but were rumored to have an intimate relationship with each other as well, switching back and forth between the sexes as the situation dictated. That they were fierce fighters is not in doubt, shown by their efforts to hold off the invaders intent on taking them captive, although they were eventually outnumbered and captured because the male crew were too drunk to fight. Both ladies were “with child” so spared the fate of their male counterparts who were hanged for high treason. While Mary is believed to have died of child fever in a Jamaican prison (buried April 28, 1721), Anne was luckier, possibly rescued by her influential father, William Cormac, ending up in her birthplace of South Carolina.

As you can see, Mary’s life was actually quite fascinating, but the author somehow found a way to make it mundane. I had to force myself to finish this book, which seemed to drag on and on.

Back and forth between 1704, 1707, 1717, and 1719 alternating between the locales of London and the Caribbean, the backstory comes too late, leaving the reader confused as to exactly what is happening. Ultimately, the intriguing details of the lives of these two rebellious woman are not used to their best advantage. There was too much tell, not enough show, with the author too often describing the events rather than putting the characters in the midst of the action.

However, this book’s one saving grace is bringing Mary and Anne to our attention and I suggest a look at A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, published in 1724, which provides the basis of many of the myths surrounding this fascinating period on the high seas.

Two stars and a thank you though both Netgalley and Edelweiss for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This review also appears on my blog, Gotta Read:

https://ellenk59.wordpress.com/2018/08/11/the-unbinding-of-mary-reade-by-miriam-mcnamara/

First let me thank Netgalley, Miriam McNamara and Sky Pony Press for this ARC ebook.

I was entranced by the idea, championing the LGBTQ romance, fell in love with the cover, and was ready to fall in love with this book. The problem was I didn't fall in love, I didn't even come to like it till I got towards the end and by then my crush on "The Unbinding Of Mary Reade" was no more.

McNamara had a great idea in taking the real-life Mary Reade and Anne Bonny and writing a book about them which is why I read this but I didn't get a pirate fantasy that would take the reader from meet-cute to sailing, fighting against the social system, and pirating the high seas and that is regrettable because I would have more than likely loved it.

What I did get from McNamara was a lukewarm set of characters that just didn't feel like they fit into the roles. Her Anne Bonny came across as petulant selfish, and childish child-woman while the side characters were bland.

Although I saw the need to introduce Mary in flashbacks as she pulls off the transition to Mark and becoming a sailor, the flashbacks as they were presented became less interesting to me as I read further especially in terms of her love for Nat as Mary and Anne as Mark.

I understood Mary's confusion, loving two people as she herself was also two people and uncomfortable in both skins. McNamara wrote that confusion very well and I was fine to have her walking that fine line because the "romance" unfortunately felt forced on both sides and I despised both Nat and Anne because they both ended up using Reade for their own needs just as much as I despised Reade for allowing it.

For a book about pirates, I hate to admit that there is very little action or actual pirating written and it lead for a longer read than I normally would have liked. In addition, my lack of reading was also dampened by the back and forth chapters as McNamara would switch time periods from chapter to chapter and in some cases lose whatever steam to excitement there might have been.

I do want to reiterate that I loved the premise of this idea as it's a good one based one two real-life female pirates and I'm a fan of wanting more female-driven women fighting against stereotypes but this wasn't that.

This was an interesting read! I found it intriguing about how a girl disguised herself and becomes a pirate. With a pirate story, I thought there would be adventure. However, it is mostly a romance. Still, I recommend it to those that like romance novels that feature pirates.