This story is told from the viewpoint of 2 different characters, 300 years apart. It was gripping to read how both Mayken and Gil's stories were intertwined. I found some parts hard to read but overall I did enjoy the book.

In a Nutshell: I enjoy historical fiction. I enjoy fantastical elements. I enjoy stories with strong child characters. I enjoy dual timelines. I enjoy fiction based on facts. BUT I did NOT enjoy this book. Go figure!

Plot Preview:
1629. Nine-year-old Mayken, newly orphaned, is sailing along with her nurse maid to the Dutch East Indies. Their vessel is the magnificent Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch trading fleet. Mayken is unlike typical girls of her era, with her unbridled curiosity and her propensity for misadventure. She spends her time roaming the ship’s underdecks and searching for a mythical monster, not realising that there is no monster worse than humankind.
1989. Nine-year-old Gil, newly orphaned, is sent off to live with his grandfather off the coast of Western Australia, on a small fishing island. When he discovers the story of a shipwreck and hears of a young girl’s ghost roaming the isle, his curiosity is stirred. However, his exploration of the facts isn’t easy when the adults around him aren’t used to having a “weird child” around.
The story comes to us in the third person perspectives of Mayken and Gil.

The book started off really well, especially in the 1629 timeline. The 1989 timeline was duller in comparison, with hardly anything to hold my interest. But when I reached the halfway mark of the book, I realised that I was registering nothing, my mind drifting away more and more often. So I went back all the way to the start and forced myself to concentrate. However, I began to lose interest at exactly the same point. I completed this book only by sheer determination and a hatred of DNFing. When a book has two timelines and neither keeps you invested, there’s no way this ship would sail to a happy ending.

The obvious common factor between the two timelines is that they come to us from a child’s perspective. Both the kids are adventurous, inquisitive, atypical of their era, and orphans. Mayken is an especially amazing character, what with her tendency to explore forbidden areas, her wild imagination, her love for her nurse maid Imke – also a great character, and her determination to be brave. Gil’s personality is more subdued in comparison, though he also has a whimsical side to him. Both kids however never behave their age, especially evident through Mayken’s fondness for using the F word. Slightly implausible that a wealthy and sheltered young girl of the early 17th century would know and use a cuss word! The only character I liked in the 1989 story was Enkidu the tortoise.

The historical timeline (the 1629 one, I mean. As I type this, I realise that both timelines are historical!) kept my attention much more than the modern one. The characters, the life aboard the ship, the old beliefs and superstitions, the mythical water monster, the darkness of the subsequent events – all were gripping to a great extent. However, as we see everything proceed only through Mayken’s eyes, we see what’s happening but we never realise why it happened. Especially considering the human machinations that resulted in such a gruesome outcome, knowing the reasons and the motivations of those involved would have helped much in feeling connected to the narrative.

There is a hint of the fantastical in both timelines, what with Mayken’s imagined monster and Gil’s investigation of the identity of the ghost girl. But the potential stays underutilised.

I had assumed that the “ghost” quest would somehow bind the two timelines together. But at the end, each timeline was cut off abruptly, with nary a connection established and many questions left unanswered. Moreover, the shift between the two timelines was very frequent, especially in the final quarter. Jumping between 1629 and 1989 after every 2-3 pages made for a bumpy and annoying ride, and the flat ending of both timelines sealed the disappointment.

I fail to see the point of Gil’s story as it had nothing to connect to the Batavia wreck except for the presence of the wreck itself in the background. The two tracks never feel like parts of the same fictional work. This novel might have worked much better for me had it focussed only on the Batavia story, thereby providing a detailed glimpse of the exact historical events.

The 1629 timeline is based on the actual shipwreck of the Batavia. I hadn’t heard of this incident and its gruesome fallout, and learning the truth of the incident left me incredulous. That said, I would have appreciated some suspense about the proceedings. However, the 1989 timeline reveals details about the 1629 events even before the historical timeline does. The latter spends a lot of time on the pre-wreck narrative but zooms through the actual event and its consequences. I read the Wikipedia entry after I completed the book to fill in the many blanks left by the novel. The wreck, its cause and its aftermath is like a horror story. How I wish the book had handled the post-wreck scenes better!

One factor where this negative reading experience is my fault is in my preference for balanced realism in writing. I'm not sure what I thought the book would be, but I certainly did not expect this endless cycle of death and darkness and abuse and misery, much of which was graphic. There is hardly any positivity in the book. On top of it, it includes gratuitous animal abuse as well! I know there are readers for such plots, but I am not one of them. I don’t mind dark reads, but seeing a plot that is so dark that it is almost carbon black? Not for me. This was almost like misery lit in the second half.

I’ve heard much praise about this author’s writing and I could see the beauty of her descriptions in this book as well. But as far as plot development is concerned, maybe I should try another book of hers to see if this novel was an aberration or the norm.

I cannot think of any strong positive point by which to recommend this book. However, all of my friends on Goodreads except two have rated this 4-5 stars. So it’s very clear that the book does hold appeal to the right reader, and I encourage you to pick it up and discover the same for yourself. In the meantime, I go looking for a book with some rays of sunshine to heal my broken heart.

2 stars, almost entirely for Mayken and for making me aware of the Batavia shipwreck.

My thanks to Canongate and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Night Ship”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

My first time reading a book by Jess Kid and it was a slightly different style book from my usual style. It took me a while to get into it but I did enjoy it once it got going.

The Night Ship is a story based on the true story of the maiden voyage of Dutch ship Batavia. The ship ran into a reef, broke apart, the passengers and crew were scattered about small uninhabitable islands with no fresh water, no food and little hope of rescue. That’s not to mention all the mutiny, murder, torture etc. The story of the Batavia is told through the eyes of two motherless children- Mayken, a rich Dutch girl being sent to her rich father in 1629 and Gil a boy placed in the care of his grandfather a hermit fisherman on a small island off the coast of Australia.
The Night Ship is a very tense book, there’s a sense of doom and foreboding throughout, you just know nothing good is coming for these kids. It’s interesting told the story through the eyes of children, as children see things with a different understanding to adults, interpreting events through a very different lens so we as readers never get a clear view of anything, we have to piece clues together and surmise just as historians have to draw conclusions of the Batavias story through what little evidence they can piece together from biased accounts. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the Night Ship exactly but it was interesting and very readable.

This is an addictive historical fiction. The writing is amazing. The story is a combination of fact and fiction. It is such an immersive read

This was my first time reading a book from the author but I am delighted to say I thoroughly enjoyed the story and I look forward to reading more books from the writer in the future

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd. I wanted this to be good so much but I think I set my own bar a bit too high. An orphaned Dutch girl and a boy in the 80’s have the stories untwined together in a quest for like not to be shit. It’s not a happy story and it’s a hard read especially as it’s based on a true story but it just didn’t grab me and I think that’s on me because everyone loves it. I think the link between the two kids was a bit weak at times as well. My take away from this is just fly places.

I adore this author but I found this book a bit more of a chore than her previous books. It's probably a case of It's not you it's me... I did love the fact that it's based on a true historical event. But for some reason it didn't spellbind me like her other work

This was an okay book but I found it a little hard to get into it. I found it focused on one character the most, Mayken. However, each character was different.
It did have some emotional elements in it so grab the Tissues.

Thank you to Canongate Books and Netgalley for the e-arc.

I absolutely loved this one and have since purchased two special editions of it

If you need to escape for a few hours I would highly recommend picking this one up

This was such an interesting and incredible read, there was such depth and intrigue. I found myself completely entranced by the story.

8.75/10

Before reading this book, I had never heard of the Batavia shipwreck of 1629 (it set sail from the Netherlands to modern-day Indonesia) and wrecked off the coast of Western Australia, which is considered one of the most infamous tales of maritime disaster in history, everyone was killed and murdered in brutal attacks.

How far can human cruelty reach? There are no limits to rage depths or even no matter what time in history it happened, not really!

This was a tragic and heartbreaking story. My heart is weak for such things. I just want to sit in a corner and cry. Read other reviews.

"Don't name them! Let them be wild and not something I have to learn about."
In 1629, a young girl called Mayken boarded the Batavia to reach his unseen father. During the long voyage, She is a little girl on the upper deck and a cabin boy on the lower deck named Obbe. She is a very kind, curious, and imaginative child who soon finds dark secrets above and monstrous creature below deck.

"There were words Mum said quietly and carefully because they were dangerous. Devil. Hangman. Tutankhamun. Cancer."
In 1989, a boy mourning the death of his beloved mother, called Gil, with a dark past, is placed in the care of his solitary grandfather on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast.
The scientists are there to dig trenches under our camp to find the Batavia that location was hard to locate from ancient records.

Yes, the two protagonists in the story, Mayken and Gil, are connected despite being three centuries apart. Sometimes Gil imagines he hears the voice of the dead Dutch girl in the wind. He knows such things as ghosts don't exist. Not if their bones are treated with respect!

It was a complete surprise to me, I did not expect such things at all. Unfairly extremely sad. I enjoy the author's writing style; the short chapter and the story narrated by two young children make it more bitter. I will definitely try other Jess Kidd books to torture myself.

Many thanks to Canongate via Netgalley for ARC, I have given my honest review.

I really enjoyed the two timelines and watching as the stories connections ebbed and flowed. I loved the historical aspect of it and learning about the Batavia Shipwreck

Jess Kidd has written two of my favourite books of the recent years, Things in Jars and Himself, so I was excited to read her latest The Night Ship. You start in the 17th century with 9 year Mayken on board the Batavia heading for the Dutch East Indies. Then you skip to 1989, on the remote Australian island of Beacon and meet Gil. There after you flip between the two stories until the elide. I confess that I didn’t love The Night Ship as much as the first two. Maybe that was because I made the mistake of Googling the real history of the Batavia after the first few pages, curiosity killed the cat.

‘The Night Ship’ by Jess Kidd is a strange compelling story about two orphaned children separated, but connected, by 361 years. Each thinks they see ghosts, learns legends and fights monsters. Both want to be scared, to seek out the unknown.
In 1628, nine-year old Mayken is aboard the magnificent Batavia, one of a fleet of ships heading from Holland to Batavia in Dutch East India (now Indonesia). She travels with her nursemaid Imke. Mayken’s mother has died of ‘the bloody flux’ and she travels to live with her father, a senior executive in the Dutch East India Company. Mayken has never met him but knows he grows red and white roses at his marble mansion, has chestnut stallions and dapple mares.
In 1989 after the death of his mother, nine-year old Gil goes to live with his grandfather who is a fisherman on the remote Beacon Island off the coast of Australia. It’s a stark place. Gil, who has only the vaguest childhood memories of both his grandfather Joss and of Beacon Island, has never known his father.
Both children explore their new surroundings, making adventures in their limited worlds. The warning ‘don’t go there’ or ‘don’t do that’ becomes an invitation to do exactly that. Both are explorers, brave in the face of the unknown, outsiders living in worlds limited in space bounded by the sea. When brutality strikes, how can they escape. Both are haunted by legend and scary stories, both make unlikely allies and enemies. Mayken discards her rich dress and wears breeches to venture below decks and, as ship’s boy Obbe, assumes a new identity. There she makes friends and enemies amongst the soldiers and sailors; these connections are vital later in the story. Gil knows he cannot leave the island without his grandfather’s permission. He finds a friend in his tortoise Enkidu and dresses up in clothes from Granny Ada’s wardrobe. When he finds a boat, inspired by stories about a shipwreck many years ago and the finds by an archaeological team digging on the island, he dreams of escape.
I loved the fond relationship between Mayken and Imke, particularly the recurring question about how Imke lost her fingertips as Mayken’s suggestions get more bizarre and gruesome. This is a welcome distraction from the bizarre and gruesome things that begin to happen aboard. Is someone making mischief, is it simply sailor’s superstitions or is there a monster aboard? Gil struggles to connect with his silent, brusque grandfather, and becomes the target of the island’s bullies. Each storyline is told only from the child’s viewpoint. Are Mayken and Gil to be trusted as reliable witnesses or has the real world become lost in their imaginations.
‘The Night Ship’ is based on the real seventeenth-century story of the voyage, shipwreck and mutiny aboard the treasure-laden ship Batavia. The fictional accounts of Mayken’s life aboard ship and then on the island they call Batavia’s Graveyard and Gil’s life on Beacon Island, the same place, explore community within and the social breakdown of small groups of people.
Slowly, slowly, this story grew on me. First, it seemed simply strange. But then the echoes in the lives of the two children begin to build and I wanted to know their endings. Beautifully-written and born from a wild imagination. This is the third book by Jess Kidd that I’ve read, each so different and impossible to predict. Sometimes a difficult read, this is also a hopeful, magical story with ultimately a positive message about the resilience of human love and kindness in the face of violence, evil and exploitation.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

Again I was drawn to the 17th Century setting and yet another book mentioning the Batavia.

There are two parallel storylines:
One set in the 17th century based on the true story of the Batavia a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
On her maiden voyage the vessel was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos islands off the western coast of Australia.
About 300 of 341 passengers survived the wreck but when the ship's commander, Francisco Pelsaert, sailed to Batavia to get help, Jeronimus Cornelisz, a senior VOC official left most of the men to die on nearby islands then orchestrated a massacre of the women, children and infants while a few of the women were kept as sex slaves.
On Pelsaert’s return with a rescue vessel his discovered Cornelisz and his men mid-massacre. They were tried and executed.
Only 122 people survived to reach their destination.

Although the historical account centres around the appalling events after the ship wreck the story in the novel spends most of the time on board.
We encounter the ship through the eyes of Mayken a little girl in the company of her nurse maid. She is being sent to Batavia to her father because her mother has died under circumstances that are veiled in secrecy and must not be mentioned.
Although she is rich and privileged she dreams of becoming a sailor and disguises herself as a boy in order to explore all areas of the ship.
This is wonderful for the reader as we get to explore the ship with her, climbing down into the belly of the vessel encountering sailors and soldiers, making friends with the kitchen boy and trying to keep a safe distance from the most dangerous, violent characters.
This is the most enjoyable part of the narrative, exciting, frightening with a touch of magical realism. The setting is so vivid and vibrant although to be honest life on board ship seems so awful it makes you wonder why anyone sailed anywhere.
After the wreck the narrative becomes confused, there is too much back and forth, too many different characters. The vitality of the fictionalised account becomes buried under the weight of the facts.

The more modern story set in 1989 centres around Gil a boy whose mother has died and has been sent to live on the Island with his grandfather from whom his mother had been estranged. The mother had a rather chaotic, unstable lifestyle and died of an over-dose and there is a suggestion of something rather concerning about how Gil behaved after his mother’s death. Despite this Gil’s grandfather disappears on long fishing trips leaving Gil alone without any kind of framework and amongst mostly unfriendly neighbours, eventually leading him to be bullied by local children. Although some people do look out for Gil he is lonely and adrift.

I much preferred the historical storyline, it was well told with a sense of place and some wonderful characters.
The modern storyline was dull and unpleasant, coloured by an ominous sense of impending disaster.
It is a known fact that the historical story ended in tragedy so it was obvious there would be no happy endings but the modern story didn’t have much of a resolution either.

I assume the second timeline was meant to give a sense of balance to the historical narrative but although the author attempted to a create parallel dialogues and occurrences, there was little connection between the stories except the location and the fact of being victimised by vicious bullies.
The second timeline felt unnecessary and dragged down the pace and atmosphere created by the historical storyline.

3.5 stars rounded up because I did quite like the writing style and turn of phrase.

I have been postponing my reading of The Night Ship by Jess Kidd because of how much I've enjoyed her previous work. Selfishly, I was trying to give Kidd time to complete her next book 😄

The Night Ship, compared to Himself and Things in Jars, falls flat. The dual timeline, never a favourite of mine, tells two completely disparate stories of two 9 year old kids. Mayken is precocious, Gil is weird. Neither are overly interesting. I know this will sound cruel but this book is essentially two vignettes, put together and as a partnership, they don't work. The magical alternate universe usually present in Kidd's work is missing. There is only really a single moment where a supernatural element appeared and it simply wasn't enough.

Thanks to @canongatebooks & @netgalley for the free e-ARC in return for an unbiased review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
This book follows a dual timeline, from the 1600s and the 1980s, this is what attracted me to the story. Both children have lives without parents and the more I read the more depressing and horrific it became - life on board for Mayken and in poor conditions for Gil are dire. However, I was not expecting to read about a nine -year-old smoking questionable substances or seeing the frequency of swear words used routinely throughout the oages. After 25% I gave up, this book was not what I expected.

The Night Ship is based on the true story of the sinking of the Dutch vessel Batavia. Told over two timelines and beautifully written, I failed to engage with the narrative.

Evocatively written from the perspectives of two children in two time lines, one around 1628 the other 1989, to highlight the true story of the shipwreck of The Batavia,
Embroiled in fairytales, myths, prejudice and brutality this is so literarily visual it captures the reader with its beautiful prose and imaginative characters. Excellently researched and executed, this is a throughly satisfying read.
Also, the audio is delicately narrated by Fleur De Witt.
With thanks to the author and Netgalley for the arc.