I'm torn about how to even review this book. I think it had so much potential and it was a lot of fun in places. I think it needed significant revision to be better than it was. Motivations were confusing with several characters which I think could've been resolved with additional drafting. That being said, I read this in just a couple sittings and felt it moved quickly and still kept me engaged despite its flaws.

This was a deliciously written Pirates of the Carribean meets Hornblower. While I didn't connect with the lead right off, the richly portrayed world and the mystery definitely kept me going. I am eager to see where things go.

Capitana should have been an exciting pirate adventure, but it was brought down by its stereotypical characters. The fmc, Ximena, is in school to become a cazadore, a pirate hunter. She's trying to prove her worth to people who don't care about her. She rigidly follows the law, has little empathy for others, and is ruthlessly focused on her career path. The mmc and love interest, Dante, is an alcoholic rival who can't live up to his mother's expectations. It doesn't get much deeper than that. The romance seems forced, especially because Dante bullies and antagonizes her for most of the book. There is some growth for Ximena (i.e., changing their long-held beliefs), but it mostly and quickly happens in the last act, so it doesn't feel earned. The growth arc would have benefited from more situations that incite doubt in her beliefs.

This book is categorized as fantasy, but we barely see any use of magic. What magic we do see happens towards the end, and even then, it's minimal. I think fantasy readers will be disappointed to see very little evidence or explanation of the magic system in this book. However, if readers are looking for pirates and adventure, I think they'd be pleased with the twists and turns of the plot. While the plot may have been the strongest part of the book, it failed to have a meaningful discussion about colonialism, war, wealth, and power. Despite the writing style being easy to read and accessible, it hindered the exploration of these complex issues. There isn't much nuance to the themes in this book. Rather, there is simply a message of "this is bad, this is good." Having the characters explore and self-reflect on these subjects would have aided in believable character arcs and thematic messages. I just wished the characters were well-rounded enough to hold their own against the plot.

Capitana is the story of Ximena Reale, whose only dream is to graduate La Academia and become a cazadora, or pirate hunter. It's personal to her, since she and her sister were orphaned when their parents, cazadoras turned pirates, were executed. But she's not very popular, especially with the high minister who awards the cazadora rank, and the only way she's going to become one is to do something spectacular. She's going to capture Gasparilla, a legendary pirate who appears to have returned from the dead. Sooner than she expects, she gets her chance.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this debut, but it was captivating. Ximena sees things in very black and white terms -- either you follow the law, or you suffer the consequences. Thankfully, she has some companions that manage to dull some of her sharp edges. But along with the battles Ximena is fighting within herself, there are a bunch of pirate battles that are exciting and well done. The book ends in a very interesting place, and I look forward to reading the next one!

DNF. I was really intrigued by the description of this book. However, after learning of how problematic the author is, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I can no longer support this author or book & keep a clear conscience. The bit that I did read wasn’t super impressive, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The book was ok overall. That's the best way to describe it. OK. I thought it started off interesting with the world building, except the FMC was very unlikable from the get go (and didn't improve as the story went on). The whole book, she's very stuck in her way of "this is the right way to do things" and if you didn't agree with her, you were the bad guy. It was basically always her way or the highway. But it felt like every other page she was judging people for having different beliefs, including turning on her own parents without waiting to hear out their perspective (knowing what I now know about this author, that sounds about right based on her views). And then for the FMC to do a complete 180 out of no where of her beliefs at the end of the book just didn't make sense at all after all. It was so abrupt and not at all explained and therefore, completely unbelievable. The MMC Dante also was unbelievable in his actions as we are supposed to believe that he has always liked Ximena (who is SO unlikeable), but she's always been nothing but rude to him and they barely interact for him to supposedly be in love with her. It just didn't add up or seem believable that he would support her and care for her the way he allegedly did when she literally treats him like trash.

Overall, I won't be continuing on with the series as the characters were very two dimensional, unlikeable, and just unbelievable in their actions. The premise was promising and sounded good, but just wasn't executed well.

Note: I requested this arc prior to hearing all the controversy surrounding this author. But I decided to still read it because whether or not I agree with this authors political views (I definitely don't), I can't only read things where I implicitly agree with the views (plus I was a bit curious if I'm being honest). That being said, I will not support this author by purchasing or reading any of her books going forward.

I requested this book originally, however, after learning that the author is a trump supporter and has said some pretty awful stuff, I will no longer be reading this book. If the author ever comes out and shares that they have grown and changed their views, I will be happy to read and post my review then

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. DNF. I will not finish. I like reading about pirates, but this isn’t holding my attention, and I don’t feel connected to the characters. I’m only rating and reviewing so it doesn’t hurt my feedback ratio.

Thank you NetGalley, HarperCollins Children's Books and Cassandra James for the opportunity to review this book. All opinions are my own.

I generally am a fan of all things pirates, so I was looking forward to reading this book by a debut author. We have Ximena, the daughter of pirate hunters turned pirates, who is herself in training to become a pirate hunter. Her parents were caught while she was a young child, and hung for their crimes. She has since been training in the same academy they did. The world is very rigid in following the rules set forth by a previous queen. She forbade magic in the world and the country has taken other countries under their rule. Ximena is a strict follower of the rules, as that is all she has ever had. She is also vilified within the academy due to her parents. She has an older sister who has an intriguing, if somewhat fantastical tale. The pirates portray themself as Robin Hoodesque and they are fighting back against an oppressive and unwanted regime. There really isn’t a magic system, it is mentioned but you only see it in action once. My biggest issue with the book was the romance aspect. I understood the motivations of both characters, and the enemies to ‘lovers’ aspect. With these tropes, there is usually a time period where the characters are figuring out each other's motivations and coming to understand previous behaviors that could have been seen as mean or bullying. And that happens here, but it is way too quick. We jump to loving each other in a fashion that just didn’t work for me. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the rest and will likely read the sequel to see how it ends.

I was really hoping to like this one. Daughter of the Pirate King is one of my faves and I was getting similar vibes from this.

For me at this moment it just ended up being too slow and the language was wordy and confusing for me so I didn’t hold my attention.

No cambies nada! Don’t change anything!

I absolutely loved this book so much. It had adventure, twists, betrayal, family, friendship and more. The Spanish elements…. It felt like I was being told a story from back home and I couldn’t get enough.
I don’t know if a series is planned but I’d definitely pick it up. A De Leon point of view is a must!!

This book was poorly written. I also feel it was done in bad taste to the culture and history. I feel like this was just a ploy to publish a book on a cultural story & legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Gaspar

Thanks for the advanced copy of this amazing book! The relationships are very realistic and I loved the bond between the sisters! The relationship between the main couple was written really well! I would recommend to anyone who enjoys pirate and academic stories! I can’t wait to see what the author comes up with next!

THE GOOD
Honestly…? Probably nothing.

THE BAD
1) The first thing that turned me away from this book almost immediately was the very prolific use of Spanish words. Why? It seemed like a cheap way to establish world building. All kinds of words are in Spanish — titles and rankings, terms of familial endearment, and [lowercase] places…but also randomly selected words in regular dialogue.

- They filed back to their respective wings in la academia: Uvedas to the northwest wing, dotredas to the northeast, trevedas to the east wing, and cuatredas to the southeast.

- What if they had used el idioma prohibido to resurrect the one man who had succeeded in sacking the capital?

There’s so much more and it’s not that I can’t understand it…but it seems cheap and corny somehow to have random words in otherwise English phrases done in Spanish, in both dialogue and in Ximena’s inner dialogue.

2) The tone of the book so far seems like an awkward adolescent — trying hard to prove itself but doing it rather clunky in the end.

3) This one’s my fault for looking through spoiler tagged reviews…but I was aghast that a certain chatacter turns out to be the love interest. Really? Him? That’s like trying to make Draco Malfoy a convincing love interest but portraying him like Crabbe and Goyle instead.

4) There was little to be found about Ximena that was likable. This isn’t to say I actively disliked her. Rather, there was nothing about her character that stood out in any deliberate way as intended by the author. And there was potential. Very early on, we learn that Ximena wears an eye patch to cover her missing or wounded eye. If we wanted to tease her character or slowly reveal more intrigue about her, the author could have showed others flinching away from her remaining stare or whispering about the stories of how it happened, then show Ximena react — or not react — to that. And I’m not saying that exact thing needed to have occurred, but I’m saying that there’s nothing interesting about our main character that draws me into the story or makes me want to know more about her abilities/goals/personality.

5) The beginnings of info dumping. Using the teaching of the creator of the pirate code, Alessandra, to give the reader a backstory of the history and rules of pirating AND making the characters recite it for the benefit of the readers was yet another hint that world building and character building weren’t going to be strengths of this book.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Maybe the book gets fun later — I don’t know. I do know that standing up against other young adult fantasy pirate books (Dark Shores by Danielle Jensen comes to mind), this book might not be able to stand apart due to its bland storytelling and lackluster characters.

The premise of this book had me excited - a school for pirate hunters, a badass-sounding FMC, and a story based on actual pirate history. However, this book had major problems, starting with the main characters. The FMC, Ximena, is a cazador candidate training at la academia. She's sailed through the training in half the time it takes a normal person, and because her parents were executed as pirates and traitors, she has a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. Her sister, Marquesa, is also in training, but as an archivist, and has the personality of a wet paper towel. Ximena's rival (I don't know how he can even be a rival when he doesn't show up to any classes or exercises) and the MMC, Dante, is the stereotypical playboy/alcoholic from money whose family name buys him immunity from having any actual responsibilities.

The next problem I had was the timeline of the training. Supposedly Ximena has known Dante the entire time she's been at la academia and has been at the same stages of training as him at multiple times but she's also somehow promoted in half the time as a normal person and is the only person to have ever done so. So how could she have known Dante as an uveda, a dotreda, a treveda, and as a cuatreda when she was completing each of these positions in 1 year versus Dante's 2? Also, while it's believable for her to promote through some of these positions in a shortened period, I don't see anyone doing it for all, especially the final position. Within a week of being a cuatreda, she's already ranked high enough to qualify to take the exam to become a cazador. Really?

Finally, the rivalry between Ximena and Dante doesn't make any sense. It's stated over and over again that Dante doesn't actually attend lessons, while Ximena is basically a pirate hunter prodigy. So how could Dante possibly possess the skills and knowledge to even compare to Ximena?

The only thing I can say this book had going for it was the pacing felt appropriate, and the narration and dialogue were easy to get into and follow without being overly simplistic.

Thank you to Net Galley and Quill Tree Books for the ARC. Being from Florida and as a fan of pirates I expected to like this novel but it just was not for me. The plot dragged and the MC was not very interesting.

I didn’t finish this book because I just couldn’t connect with it. The characters felt flat, and I didn’t care what happened to them. The plot moved at a snail’s pace, and I kept waiting for something to hook me, but it never did. Honestly, I found myself dreading picking it back up, which is never a good sign. The writing felt a little too forced, like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t. I wanted to like it, but it just wasn’t for me. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on to the next read.

I’m extremely grateful to HarperCollins and Quill Tree books for the e-arc! Below is my unbiased review.

As someone whose favorite movie is the Pirates of the Caribbean, I was SO excited for a pirate book!! However, this fell a little short for me. Maybe that’s on me. I don’t feel like my expectations were high, but I think I expected a different story. Ultimately, I don’t feel like this book was for me. It is great for a younger audience though!

I’m someone who reads YA, New Adult, and Adult books. I love the variety! It’s important to note that Capitana is YA and it feels that way. If you’re expecting a more adult pirate book, this is not it. There’s not much violence and what little is there, it’s not graphic. To me, it’s a good, safe book for teens.

With all the reading I’ve done, I knew who the romance would be between. It was clearly supposed to be enemies to lovers but I wasn’t exactly rooting for them. I personally just didn’t feel the spark. But it was obvious the male main character was into the female character from the start (even though he acted like he despised her). Throughout 96% of the book (literally), she took zero interest in him. Then, all of a sudden, she liked him?

For the first 80%, Marquesa baffled me! As an older sister, I would do anything for my siblings. I would take care of them any way I could, not cower in fear and expect them to do everything. But then….

***SPOILERS***

I’m sorry, but Gasparilla’s identity came out of nowhere!! I guess it kind of makes sense considering the history? But there wasn’t even a hint or breadcrumb that Marquesa was Gasparilla.

What shocked me the most was Ximena’s undying loyalty to the empire. Then all of a sudden, she turns against the empire. It can make for a good story but I didn’t quite buy it in such a quick turnaround.

Her parents turned against the empire they swore to protect and and 12 years old, she gave them up to be hanged for privacy and treason. Capitana by Cassandra James is the story of Ximena Reale, the fastest rising star of la academia who is determined to prove she is worthy of the title Cazadore- protector of the the law and the Queen and top pirate hunter.

The word around the empire of Luza is that Gasparillo, the long dead pirate who 200 years ago pillaged all the treasure in Luzan’s vaults, has been resurrected using el idioma prohibido - forbidden magic. He is back to clean out the coffers once again and Ximena knows that the only way to gain respect, title and fame is by capturing the legendary pirate.
Lots of fun and I look forward to more!

Overall, I don’t think this was my cup of tea. I couldn’t really vibe with the writing style, and there was something about the characters that prevented me from rooting for them. I looked up the author after finishing the book, and lo and behold, I found my answer. The author’s views and opinions on political matters reflect in the story, which I just don’t agree with.