Review: Hostage Three

Title: Hostage Three
Author: Nick Lake

Description: Amy and her wealthy parents are on a yacht trip around the world when they are captured by Somalian pirates and held for ransom. During the time they spend with their captors, eighteen year old Amy gets to know them as people, especially one who she might be falling for.  

Review source: ALA (and signed by the author, see photo below)

Plot: This book is very different from the first book I read by Lake, In Darkness, which is about Haiti. They do share an interest in Third World countries and how people act when they are desperate. It was a bit of a stretch for me, though, to imagine spoiled Amy falling for a Somali thug.

Characters: Amy is fairly unlikeable. For an almost-adult, she acts spoiled and spiteful for most of the book. I would have liked to see a change in her behavior earlier, though it does eventually come, I think. Lake does a marvelous job portraying the pirates. He humanizes them, but at the same time, their desperation makes them very scary.

Writing style: Very similar to the earlier book, which I loved. This one lacks the historical parallel story, though, and is told through Amy’s eyes.

Audience: It’s a young adult book, but it’s deep enough that adults will get something from it. I think that because of the love story, this one is more restricted to young people and less universal than In Darkness.

Wrap-up: Lake is just a very talented, very versatile young writer. Read something he’s written! 4/5*