The Mad Ship

Book review for The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb. I rated it 4 stars. This book is the second in the Liveship Traders trilogy - it's been a while since I've continued a book series so that at least gives some indication to it being an interesting book for me! A lot of the issues I had with the first book, Ship of Magic, persist in the second. Hobb's style of fantasy tends towards real and gritty, and not at all a comfy world that you would actually want to live in. There's sexual violence towards women and a romance plotline that continues to develop between 13-year-old Malta and 20-year-old Reyn (ew). But Hobb once again partially redeems herself by including a lot of strong female characters. The story is quite female-centric, albeit it's more about them trying to make their way through the realities of a male-dominated world rather than a "woo, go women!" female empowerment type of story. The first half of the book involves a lot of cringing as we deal with unlikeable characters. Plus we…