SPOILERS AHEAD
I feel like one of those people that strikes down holy cows just to get a reaction, but… weak characters, a shallow morality, no real plot, no character arc… all these things make for a poor story in my opinion. Some particular things that annoyed me – a policeman comes to investigate the camp. Nancy tells him to clear off, which he does, because his mother used to work for Nancy’s. So, essentially, there’s a real support of class structure here. It’s not even as if Nancy has done anything other than being born into a ‘better’ family. The Amazons annoy their uncle Jim, refuse to admit it, so he has a go at the Swallows. It is Uncle Jim that is ‘in the wrong’ and is forced to apologise, despite being, it seems, a decent chap and undeserving of the punishment he gets. The whole book is a series of events that are used to educate about sailing. At one point, there’s a real danger of a story breaking out when there’s a burglary, but, instead of some intrepid adventure, the kids find the stolen stuff and the burglars are never identified and get away scott free. 400 pages of nothing…
