It wasn't till I made it to the halfway mark that I realized what was wrong.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but something wasn't right.

I had such high hopes for this book but it fell flat for me. It's been a week since I finished reading and I've struggled so much with putting this review together. This is like a bad parody of her own stuff. Filthy rich girl who is weirdly understanding and kind to dirt poor people? Check. Snooty formerly poor person trying to hide their humble backgrounds whose heart eventually melts? Check. Noble poor boy willing to die to save rich people? Check. Everyone felt like a caricature that you'd find in a really lazy historical fiction novel, which makes no sense because Nielsen is a highly talented writer! Bumbling con man who speaks openly about his plans? Check. It also kept harping on 'women and children first' in this really aggressive way as if to retcon that idea as standard maritime procedure, when it was actually considered really weird for Smith to order the evacuation that way (contrary to what disaster movies and books will have you think, men typically save themselves in emergencies and do not stop to help others-in most maritime disasters, crew survive and passengers die because it's every man for himself lolsob). Nielsen so often knocks it out of the park with historical thrillers, and this was not thrilling. Maybe I'm just too much of a Millennial and I'm seeing things that aren't there, but too often I felt like I was getting movie quote references-it's like the main research source was James Cameron. This book is a mess, from the easiest things to get right (how can you get the number of passengers on the ship wrong? I don't even need to look it up to know-it's as well known as the name of Columbus' ships) to the cartoonish villains. I really expected a lot better from Nielsen.

Iceberg jennifer nielsen