It took me many weeks to wade through a journal-like book. I can't say it is badly written. The only thing is that it makes tedious reading. Yet I am not willing to let it go as I know I am learning new facts about sailing round the world centuries ago.
I am amazed that the author actually accessed journals kept by sea captain and naturalist in order to gather materials to write a fictional account of the journey through the eyes of a stowaway. I may be willing to struggle through hundreds of pages to learn new facts, but I have no great love for the sea. And I won't dream of going through reams of decaying documents to sieve through historical data.
If you are interested to find out how it is like to be on Captain Cook's first journey which he discovered Australia, this is a good book to read. It was a by gone age where a boy in his early teen could be signed on to work on such a ship. Many able body sea men died of tropical diseases while Nicholas Young lived to join Joseph Banks on a journey to Iceland.
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