I thought this was quite a slow starter but once it took off it raced along full of despair and menace and , dare one say it, magical realism It’s the parallel tale with alternate chapters set in 1628 on the Batavia, a doomed sailing ship, and in 1989 on the remote island of Australia where the ship was eventually sunk. In 1628 young Mayken boards the ship in Holland, while in 1989 Gil comes to live with his grandfather on the island. Both have lost their mothers, and we gradually begin to sense the similarities between their deaths.
Both children are imaginative, Mayken being resourceful as well as superstitious while Gil is mentally and physically adrift, struggling with his mother’s death and with his own identity. I’ve got a little bit bored with the legends of the mystical, malign creatures and the threats they posed. However the tension became almost unbearable when the threats to Gil manifested in reality and to Mayken. In the latter’s case , this was with the knowledge with that this book is based on a true story
Both children are imaginative, Mayken being resourceful as well as superstitious while Gil is mentally and physically adrift, struggling with his mother’s death and with his own identity. I’ve got a little bit bored with the legends of the mystical, malign creatures and the threats they posed. However the tension became almost unbearable when the threats to Gil manifested in reality and to Mayken. In the latter’s case , this was with the knowledge with that this book is based on a true story