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Feb 17, 2015JCLChrisK rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
"When someone had been nimble enough to lace Hilary into a dress, her father would kiss her on the forehead and say, 'Run along and be a good little girl.' Hilary intended to be a great many things, and a good little girl was not one of them." No, Hilary is bound and determined to be, above all else, a nefarious scoundrel of the piratical variety. Unfortunately, the overly-bureaucratic Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates (Servin' the High Seas for 152 Years) has rejected her membership application on the basis of her female status, and her pirate-hunting, admiral father has responded to the application by sending her off to Miss Pimm's Finishing School for Delicate Ladies (Where Virtue Blossoms). But no school is going to keep Hilary from becoming a rapscallion and scallywag, so she is left with no choice but to take matters into her own hands by running away from school and signing on with Jasper Fletcher, Freelance Pirate, Terror of the Southlands (VNHLP certified in battle, treasure hunting, & parrot maintenance) on his mission to find the lost magic of the Enchantress of the Northlands. This is a delightfully fun story that offers heaps of adventure and an uproarious send-up of proper high society stuffiness, gender norms, and ridiculously burdensome procedures and legalese. The letterheaded correspondences, articles, signs, and forms that appear between chapters are particularly brilliant. And absolutely top marks to Kathrine Kellgren's appropriately exuberant and melodramatic audiobook reading, which cartoonishly nails the wide variety of voices, accents, cadences, and manners, from full-on coarse pirate to polished and prudish upper crust and everything in between.