Book Review: Kinfolk

Kinfolk by August Niehaus
My GoodReads rating: 3 of 5 stars

Overall Kinfolk was an enjoyable book.

 
Kin, the main character, was supposed to be a war-hardened badass but he came across as an incompetent, constantly horny, distracted basket case. His awesomeness is told to us more often than shown to us.

Fraya, the captain of the pirate crew Kin serves with, is always kissing her crew, flirting with them, trying to seduce one or more of them... and it's never explained why she's like that. It's implied her crew loves her and would do anything for her, but it seems more like her crew are just thirsty for her. Most of the rest of the crew are side characters.

 
The main antagonist, Tana, is a cartoony villain who seems like she just wants to have sex with everything. In fact, a lot of the characters seem like all they want to do is have sex with the main character. Tana's motivations are revealed late, but not thoroughly explored nor explained other than cursorily.

Cessie, the young girl Kin kind of adopts, is awesome and the only believable character.

The best part of the book is that there's a treasure hunt, but it's not resolved, and that ongoing threat is saved for future books.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy from Netgalley for the purposes of this review.  

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