By Larissa Page
Never quite fitting in to his small hometown in Québec, Sebastian Goh leaves shortly after his mother dies in search of the father who abandoned him. Thirty years after abandoning Sebastian’s pregnant mother in Québec, Kostas is now a Hotel Commander of a luxury liner in the Mediterranean. Sebastian gains a job on board and very quickly discovers the ship is full of class division, oppression, and possibly even worse crimes hidden behind the opulence of the officers’ quarters. Leading a rebellion to give a voice to the powerless staff and crew, Sebastian works through his angry past and determines where his own true choices lie.
The Rebellious Tide was a captivating and transportive read. The settings and descriptions of the different levels of the luxury liner (not cruise ship!), from the lowest levels of “Hades” to the opulent guest quarters, to the dark corners of the crew bar, were well told without being overpowering to the story. The fact that most of the story took place within the confined space of the ship was also fascinating because even as there was movement within the story—both the ship moving around the Mediterranean and the characters moving around the ship—the setting was fairly contained.
I really liked the persistence of the rebellion within the story. The group of characters known as “the powerless” were determined and creative. I love a good story of uprising against oppression and this story delivered that. Additionally, Sebastian and his friends may have been the leaders of the rebellion, but it was clear that the movement reached further and breathed on its own without them as well. This was telling of this type of revolutionary action, and it was well done.
The one thing I wish had been a bit more flushed out was Sebastian’s character at the beginning. I felt disconnected from him once he started pushing back against the officers simply because the small amount of his character we’re shown at the beginning of the novel didn’t give me enough to understand if this was in character for him or not. As the story progressed we were shown more of his past, which helped. I felt the same about the relationship between Sebastian and Nikos. The feelings of the relationship were pretty clear but the build up to it was lacking for me.
The tie-in of Greek myths, the creativity and determination of the movement/rebellion, and the ability to be transported to the different parts of the ship and story made this a captivating reading journey for me.
Thank you to Dundurn Press for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.