Capitana by Cassandra James

Introduction 

The premise of this book is simple: the young Ximena Reale wants to be promoted to a Cazador, but due to her family background she needs to perform something extraordinary to earn the title. When it is rumoured that renowned pirate, Gasparilla, has returned from the dead, Ximena makes that her mission: to capture him and gain the promotion she so desires - and it is the only thing she wants in life.

I should make it clear before I get into this review, that I absolutely hated it with every fibre of my being and that all my writing will in no way be objective. I have subscribed to Illumicrate for a few years now, and this book is without a doubt the worst one. Now, when that is out of the way, let us begin.

World building 

The world building is non-existing in Capitana. We are presented to an Empire plagued by pirates, whose only defender are the cazadors, a vaguely titled group of marine soldiers that follow the law to the letter. I could not tell you if the cazadors did anything else than kill pirates, but it is never elaborated on, so perhaps not. The ranking and title system is explained in the beginning of the book, and James tries to intrigue us a little bit with the layout and design of the La Academia. She fails miserably, and when we return in the latter part of the book as Ximena gets a promotion, the idea that she looked forward to seeing the quarters and training areas of the cazadors seems fake and ridiculous. The dungeon designed as a labyrinth was an interesting choice by glance, but by no means a challenge when you can just leave bread crumbs to retrace your steps to get out. Would have been more handy if there had been magic involved with the labyrinth.

Speaking of magic, it is mentioned several times that magic is prohibited and people who practiced it were persecuted 200 years ago when the Empire was founded. It would be odd to expect Ximena to know anything about it, however, she is introduced to so little magic that it is wasteful. We see it in action when Ximena and her team force their way out of the magical storm surrounding the pirate hideout, but never again. There were also the skeleton women inside a cave, one being the admirals former lover, but they did not do anything? And somehow the ship managed to escape without problems, and our main trio simply took a detour before joining up with them again. Maybe the topic of magic will be expended more in the sequel James plans on writing but honestly, the book would have been better without it. 

Lastly, I need to touch upon that the fact that the infrastructure, the foundation of know this Empire is run, is never explained. The Empire has a Queen and a High Minister, but it is never clear why a country so young would have a royal family at all, and how the ministry works. You are constantly slapped in the face with the seven pillars of law that their society rests on, but that's where the world building stops. The fact that I cannot tell you what the cazadors actually are, says a lot. Are they police? The army? The navy? Simply pirate hunters? And why was the capital so poorly defended that single ship could sail in, capture the Queen, and sail out again with no problems? Nothing makes any sense, and it is unclear to me if you are supposed to "roll with it" and see where the story takes you - and that unfortunately, is many places, but also, nowhere at all. 

Characters 

I am not even sure I could dedicate a section to each character in this book, as none of them have many personality to speak of. They are a bunch of one-dimensional people with little to no character development for any of them. Ximena especially is extremely stubborn and loyal to the Empire, and has convinced herself that she was right when she gave up her parents to the Empire (which naturally, led to their public execution). She refuse to take any pleasure (no good food, dancing etc.,), no friendships to speak of (only exploration) and the arrogance worthy of Trump himself. She claims that her sister is her only weakness, and the only person she loves. But she rarely thinks of her, and the sister is never Ximena's first priority, even when she claims that she is. In the end, Ximena does turn her back on la Academia and everything she stands for, but it comes so suddenly and is executed so awkwardly that it would have been more interesting to see the sister hang and have Ximena live with the consequences. 

Talking about the sister, I was by no means surprised when it turned out Gasparilla was not back from the dead but rather that someone was impersonating him. No one in is world knows enough about magic to actually explain if resurrecting is possible, but no one seemed to question it. However, the fact that it was the sister was weak twist. Obviously, there were a limited amount of side characters to choose from, but I would it unrealistic and implausible that a woman attending school could sneak out run the pirate underworld. We are talking about a school where said girl got expelled for going out drinking, and where Ximena gets punished for missing dinner one night. We get a one page explanation for how it all came to pass, but it still does not make any sense how the sister managed to pull it off. 

And spending time on Ximena's sidekicks, Dante and Pia, would also be a waste. Dante has the depth of a table spoon, and Pia is so unfairly treated by Ximena that I was close to throwing my book at the wall. Pia is somewhat autistic-coded, (she has the brains, lack of social cues, perfect memory etc.), but she is viewed as nothing but a naïve tool and plot device. Even though that might be generous, since there is no plot. As for Dante, he has no personality and there is no logical explanation for why he falls in love with the main character. Setting him up as the antagonist for the sequel will also fall through, as he has no reason to actually follow through on this quest, since it was handed to him by the Empire - and he is not exactly a fan, so why bother? The story would have been fine without him, and maybe it would have worked better to merge the two characters altogether. Then they would have had some depth at least. 

My thoughts on other people's thoughts

I will not dwell on this a lot, as most people agree: this book is poorly written, with no original ideas, characters or story arcs. It is also advertised as a romance, however, that trope was severely lacking with no chemistry between the main character and Dante. I have not read any reviews that had a positive thing to said - or perhaps I have avoided them - but it is fair to say that Capitana was poorly received by most. Many has also made fun of that a Princeton student, studying creative writing, should have been able to write better. I think a 8 year old could have created a better and more interesting world by a landslide. So let us leave it at that. 

Overall rating ⭐★★★★★★★★★

In conclusion, I have nothing positive to say about this book whatsoever. The writing is horrendous, repetitive and boring, the characters are one-dimensional, the world lacking in depth and the story itself is flat, uninteresting and straight up implausible. I would never recommend this book to my worst enemy, and it even made me miss Fourth Wing, a book I find highly overrated but yet, it still has elements that are interesting and believable. Only read this book if you get paid to do so, as it was a quick read - when you have read the same thoughts from Ximena two times, you know what you are going to read for the rest of the book. Yes, the pirates were clearly the good guys, the Robin Hoods of the world, but James didn't even try. This must have been her first written assignment at university she decided was her most original idea. Maybe with a couple of rewrites and a step away from abusing the Spanish language, she might be able to write something that wasn't completely unbearable. But only maybe...