Review: My Fair Captain

My Fair Captain by J.L. Langley

My rating: 1 of 5 stars




'Tangled' is on ABC Family so I'm watching that while I write this review. Because I need something happy to distract me when I start to get extra ranty. Because this review? It's gonna be really freaking ranty.

I wanted to give this book two stars for two reasons: Jeremy and Rexley. Rexley doesn't get to do anything until like...the second to last chapter, but his interaction with Jeremy is beautiful and I love them and I want a book about them because it's bound to be better than this was.

Here's what I was looking for in this book: A fun, science fiction, regency inspired mystery with a quaint romance subplot.

Here's what I got: A HORRIBLE romance that occasionally paused for a page or two to remind you there was supposed to be a plot. It also has some creepy misogyny thrown in, too, which does not help its case.

I really don't know where to start with this.

How about the misogyny? Okay. Sounds good. The planet of Regelence is founded on this theory: that "lovers would fight better together than non-lovers because they would be less willing to disgrace themselves in battle." Okay. That could be interesting. EXCEPT apparently this only applies to men. So the entire society is disgustingly patriarchal.

What do I mean by disgustingly? The aristocracy genetically engineer their children so they will all be male and will all be attracted to men.

...

I kind of had this head canon going that the women were off in their own little country of lesbian awesomeness ignoring the stupidity of the men folk. The country also has heterosexuals, trans* people, and any gay men who also think Regelence is a giant sack of bullshit.

That head canon got axed towards the end, though: "All the women are so inelegant and lower class."

ALL OF THEM, YOU GUYS. There are no classy ladies on Regelence. Probably because they all left. And are planning a rescue mission to get the rest of the women off that hell hole of a planet.

Also, there's another regency based planet called Englor, where Nate is from, that is more concretely regency based in that homosexuality is frowned upon. So, you can probably guess how the women are treated there.

BUT there's even more creepy misogyny. We only meet three female characters in this book, but I'm going to list four because one gets mentioned and illustrates my point about Englor.

1. Muffin. She's 4. She's named Muffin because the guy who named her (Rexley) was hungry at the time. WHO THE FUCK LETS THAT HAPPEN?

2. Christy. She's the nurse. We don't see much of her.

3. Kindros. Nate's second in command. The only time we see her, a prisoner escaped and has a gun to her head. THE ONLY TIME WE SEE HER.

4. The fourth doesn't even have a name. She was the fiance of someone Nate knew on Englor. Nate caught her leaving a rendezvous with another man, so to save face she accused Nate of trying to take advantage of her.

These are the only women in this book. At all. And that's fucked up. Because with all of the other misogynistic bullshit going on it just adds to the pile and makes this book a steaming pile of misogyny. Among other things.

Like. Okay. This is science fiction. I want a really good reason why people have to be chaste until marriage (men on Regelence, Women on Engelor). Saying it's because it's based on Regency sort of flies on Englor but not really because it's the future you can discard the stupid parts of a society, as evinced by Regelence, which is where "it's regency" *doesn't* fly because, oh, hey, THE ENTIRE ARISTOCRACY IS GAY MEN. So clearly they're not opposed to not being entirely based on regency.

Let's talk about Aiden. I don't know how old he's *supposed* to be, but he reads pretty freaking young. Like, middle school/early high school age. So whenever Nate - who, by the way, can't control himself when he's around Aiden, which is hella creepy - calls Aiden 'boy'? ADDS TO THE HELLA CREEPY (except when my brain farts and I think he's talking about Jeremy, his adopted son, then I'm just confused).

Then there's the 'plot'. The plot that only crops up when the characters aren't having or wanting to have or thinking about having sex. The plot needed a hell of a lot more development, because I could not figure out who the fuck a few of the people involved in the thefts and shit were. Like, characters should not pop up out of nowhere if they're central to the plot!

Also, everyone in this book has like...six different names. And there's no rhyme or reason to why someone uses one name over another. So one minute Jeremy is Jeremy and the next he's Trouble and I'm like who the fuck are you talking about? Seriously, it took me a good chunk of the book to realize Jeremy and Trouble were the same person.

You know what, screw that shit. This book is getting one star. And I think I'm done with this review. I probably have about a hundred more things to rant about, but I can't think of any of them right now. I'm going to watch 'Tangled' and stop thinking about this.



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