Sailor Girl [Eaglegrl's review]

Sailor Girl isn't quite shipshape for Eaglegrl:

Olson provides vivid descriptions of the lake and life on the ships. The storms, the calming water, the galley, the loading and unloading of freight. Life going from port to port, working hard, getting drunk, falling in lust, getting high. She discovers the upstairs/downstairs nature of ship life, meets great friends, and enemies.

I had high hopes for this book as i started it but after enjoying the first third or so i found myself rather disinterested by it. I ended up reading three other books before finally getting thru this one. I found a lot of the story-lines became tedious and i just wanted to shake Kate and say “What the hell are you doing?”. Instead of focusing on a few story-lines and expanding on them, i felt pulled in many directions while we learned about Kate’s sister, landlord, and best friend, the head cook’s home life, the pot-smoking teenager on the boat, her abusive boyfriend and his strange friends. I also would have been interested in hearing more about the upstairs/downstairs nature of life on the lakes. The fact that though their are definite classes aboard the ship, they are a family of sorts and those classes are strict, yet not.

My big question at the end of the book was...what was she really running from in Montreal?
* 2.5 stars *

Keep reading Eaglegrl's review... 

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More information

• Porcupine's Quill | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com
• ISBN-10: 0889843015 
• ISBN-13: 978-0889843011