Book Review: Steel by Carrie Vaughn

Title: Steel

Author: Carrie Vaughn

Details: Hardcover, 304 pgs.

Published: March 15th, 2011 by HarperTeen

isbn: 0061547913 (ISBN13: 9780061547911)

Reading Level: Young Adult

Source: Sent by HarperTeen for review purposes 

Description:

It was a slender length of rusted steel, tapered to a point at one end and jagged at the other, as if it had broken. A thousand people would step over it and think it trash, but not her.
This was the tip of a rapier.

Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure.
The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home—one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain.
Time travel, swordplay, and romance combine in an original high-seas adventure from New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.

My Thoughts:
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year.  Really, the description says it.  It just sounds amazing!  Now while I can't say the book disappointed me exactly, it didn't quite live up to expectations either.  I did like it quite a lot though.
I liked the setting once Jill goes back in time.  I thought the pirate ship and the pirates were pretty great.  I loved that it was in the Bahama's and some famous pirates were mentioned.  I was able to picture it all quite well, I was impressed with the descriptions.
I liked Jill but I didn't feel like I quite connected with her.  Like there was something just out of my grasp.  Maybe it was partly because it was told in third person.  I think maybe first person may have been better for this story, but I'm not the writer here, so maybe not.
The romance was... well, pretty much non existent.   I felt like we were led to believe there would be romance and then I never felt a connection between them.  So don't read it for the romance.  However, I did like Henry and the other pirates and loved that they weren't really as evil as people may imagine.  We all like to think there were good pirates out to help people too, right?  Well, they may not be that good, but they definitely didn't do anything too evil in this book.  
This book is first and foremost a historical fiction.  There was magic but it wasn't much.  And it certainly didn't dominate the story.  Traveling back in time, well, that's probably the strongest bit of magic in the book.  The rest was good, but it wasn't like there was a ton of it.  
My overall feeling of this book was that it was good.  I'm happy to own a copy and it's one I can share with my friends and family.  It's also clean.  No sex, no profanity and although there's violence it's not much and not terribly descriptive.

You can find Carrie Vaughn on her:
Website

Purchase:

IndieBound

Disclosure: I received this book free of charge in return for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.