Name: Triplicity
Rating: 4.50 (2 reviews)

I received this book for free from the YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Can the kids find out who is stealing from the other passengers?

Triplicity by J. Mercer is an excellent book by this refreshing new author. I loved it from the very beginning to the end. It’s not like a conventional book either, and it’s fabulous. She captured the cruise pretty well. We have three points of view to go from: Navy is a girl that is going on the cruise with her mom and soon to be stepfather. Isaiah is a cowboy that lives on a ranch during the summer times and is trying to convince his grandma that he isn’t gay. He is there with his aunt who paid for the trip, and then we have Jesse who’s there with his dad while his mom stayed home.

Navy

One of the main characters is named Navy, and she’s the only female lead. She is the first point of view character that we read. She is a pretty fantastic person. I get what she means, but my life is nowhere near as messed up as hers. I liked that she tries to keep her values that she has grown up with intact and that she doesn’t take much to liars. What I didn’t like about her is that she also became one.

Isaiah

One of the main characters is named Isaiah, and he’s the first male lead. He is the second first-person point of view that we have and he is kind of a double standard I guess. Isaiah doesn't fit a stereotype; he is more of the don’t base the book from its cover type of guy. He is a pretty weird person. I am glad that he changed and that we saw the two different sides of him. The only motivation of Isaiah’s throughout the whole thing is he wants to go back to the ranch.

What I liked about him is that he showed his true colors throughout the book. That definitely helped Navy out and helped him out as well. What I didn’t like about him is that he didn’t think of Navy as a person really that has feelings or had the time to get to know her properly.

Jesse

The last of the main characters is named Jesse. He is the last third person point of view that we have seen and he is another character that you shouldn’t judge by his looks. Jesse is definitely different from Isaiah with the whole tattoos, but he doesn’t look like a deadbeat. What I like about him is that he genuinely cares for Navy and is taking his time with her so that he won’t scare her off. I am happy that he didn’t just want to kiss her for any odd reason either. I didn’t really find anything that I didn’t like about this character.

Five Star

I am giving Triplicity by J. Mercer a five-star rating. She did have some mistakes here and there, but they didn’t take me out of the book, and they are so minuscule that it is something that I am okay with them. Each of the characters had me rooting for them in some fashion. Yes, even Isaiah even though he was a bit rude to Navy and Jesse.

Excerpts for the book:

Meet Navy:

Masses of people stood in line to board the incubator in front of me. Sorry, cruise ship. But honestly, the thought of so many bodily fluids in such a confined space made my stomach churn.

Double-checking that my hand sanitizer was still in place, I bumped my backpack higher on my shoulder and stepped away from my mom's fiancé, who was chatting up a blue-haired old lady. Facing my mom, I decided it was as good a time as any to start up our fight again. She couldn't get away from me here.

“If we keep moving like this,” I started, “I'll never be kissed.” There'd been one guy in Houston I'd had hopes for, but after this vacation we were headed to Kansas City. I might only be sixteen and five-sixths, but at this point it felt like I'd be voting first.

“You do the kissing then, Navy.” My mom caught the eye of an officer at the next checkpoint and smiled, smoothing her hands down the front of her black jumpsuit. She was always worried about her first impression and always deferential to those in uniform.

I reached behind her and tightened her halter top, thankful at least she hadn’t picked the leopard print. It was a good thing we were getting out of Texas before its fashion sense could get too many claws in her.

My mom's normal go-to attire—conservative diamond studs, fitted sweaters with pencil skirts, and sleek suits—would curl a lip at sharing suitcase space with a glorified onesie in leopard print.

Her attention hopped from the officer to Guy, my soon-to-be stepdad. “Solve your own problems, dear. Before they can solve you.”

“No, Mom. Just, no.” She would never get it; everyone wanted to kiss her. Somehow, she pulled off rich and cultured while still approachable, where my resting face was icy at best.

A girl couldn't help her resting face, and it took a long time for people to get past that. Plus, I was too picky, or so my mother said. I wanted real emotion, not just chemistry, and I definitely didn't want to get it over with, which is what she kept telling me to do.

“Anyway, this move,”—always moving, I should add—“it’s about stability too.”

Guy let out a huge laugh, and the old lady's hat bobbled in the air as her shoulders shook. My mom and I shuffled forward, neither of us bothering to notify him he was holding up the line. It didn't matter; this was the Godzilla of lines. Take any ride at Disney on the busiest day of the year, and it wouldn't top this one: through a vast building (stand here, punch that, sign this, rude hands gesturing you impatiently over there like you'd done this before and had any idea what they wanted with you), out into a human holding tank, up and back and up and forth inside a humongous steel cage, until finally we reached the deck that wrapped around the massive boat.

We were cattle. And we were being herded into an incubator.

Shaking my head of it, I begged her, “Please, please, please don't make me switch high schools again. This is the last one, okay? Can you manage two years in Kansas City?”

“If you insist, love.” My mom patted the back of my head, then dropped her hand to my shoulder and kneaded it. With her attention focused elsewhere, it was her usual absent-minded pep talk. “If you don’t want to see more of the world.”

Shaking her off, I took a few steps forward. Guy was still flirting with the old lady and people were starting to grumble behind them, so I went back for his stuff and tapped him on the shoulder. His black turtleneck made him look even more pompous than he was, but this lady was eating it up same as my mom had. When I was back at her side, I whispered, “If you get sick of Guy, we stay in Kansas City anyway. Got it?”

She extended her diamond-studded right hand to shake mine. “Got it.”

Wrapping my bare fingers around her chilled palm and the collection of old rings resting along her knuckles, I wondered if she actually loved this one.

Meet Jesse:

“I am not sleeping there,” I said, throwing my suitcase on the one queen bed in the room and heading to the patio doors that led to a tiny deck. “Mom should be sleeping there, and I won't take her spot.”

We were pulling away from port, and the skyline of Seattle stretched in front of me like a postcard or a puzzle. Futzing with the lock, I opened the door and stepped out to take a picture.

“Only for photos!” my dad called, a reminder not to use my phone. I could barely hear him, though, over the hum of the engine and the slapping of the waves against the boat. The downside to taking a ship to sea? No cell towers, roaming charges, and very expensive Wi-Fi.

I went back inside but left the door open for the fresh air. Well, arguably fresh. The odor of big city tainted the briny scent coming off the water, but soon enough we’d be able to fill our noses with it.

“Stupid to have them pull out that couch for you every night.” Unzipping his luggage, my dad motioned me over and nudged my suitcase. “I won't spoon you, don't worry.”

Sliding into the little hall by the bathroom, he returned with hangers. As he slid his dress clothes onto them, I could tell by the muscles hardening his brightly-colored biceps that he wasn't as cool with the whole situation as he looked. Why was I giving him a hard time anyway? She was leaving us both.

I swallowed. “Why'd she surprise us with a trip if she wasn’t going to come?”

“So she wouldn't have to face us.”

My crisp dress shirt crumpled in my fist.

“If we were there when she was moving out, we’d have made her feel more guilty.” His words were radio static, strange and wrong and scraping. I regretted asking the question.

He motioned for the items I'd hung up, then went back to the closet. A few moments passed, longer than it took to hang a few shirts on a rod. I'd never seen my dad cry, but there'd been a few times on the drive here when I thought he might lose it. The thing was, though, her stuff had been in all the right places when I'd been packing, and she'd been there when we pulled out of the driveway. For all we knew, no matter what she said, she might still be there when we got back.

A knock shook the door, and with three strides, Dad had it open. A short, slight man stood in front of him, in yet another uniform. There'd been no shortage of people today and no shortage of uniforms.

“Hi sirs. I will like to introduce myself to you, your cabin attendant this week.” He nodded, but I knew my dad couldn't hear him over the accent. Which made them even, as likely our cabin attendant couldn’t hear my dad over his tattoos. Most people couldn’t.

I stepped up to shake his hand and repeated him for my father's sake. “You're our cabin attendant this week?”

He pumped my arm and nodded with the same beat. “Anything you need. I help. Every night I pull down sheets. Turn down service, chocolates. I bring your bags to your door. I take them out for you at end of week. Have a question? You find me.” He motioned up and down the hall, like that's where he'd be.

Checking his nametag, I said, “It's nice to meet you, Danilo.”

“Da-NEE-lo,” he corrected my pronunciation with a smile.

“I'm Jesse Kowalski.” I thumbed toward my dad, who'd slipped back into the tiny hall. “That's my dad. People call him Wally.”

Dad rolled his eyes and turned away. He hated when I chatted with people.

“Is only the two of you?” he asked, peering in as if he could see into our past two weeks.

Dad made a garbled noise, and I nodded.

“I will split bed, okay?” He motioned toward it.

“Oh. You can do that?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry to have made mistake.”

“There was, um, no mistake,” I assured.

“I’ll split when you are at dinner, yes?”

“That’s great, Danilo, thanks.” Nodding, I hung a hand on top of the open door. “Hey, where you from?”

“Philippines, Jesse. You?”

“Omaha, Nebraska. Ever heard of it?”

“No, sir.”

“Center of the U.S. Land-locked. Know what I mean?”

He shook his head, a wrinkle creasing between his brows.

“So far inland, no sea in sight.” He seemed a little confused, so I moved on. “You leave anyone behind in the Philippines?”

“I don't think those are the kinds of questions he was talking about, Jess,” my dad grumbled from the bed.

“I have wife. Five boys. One girl. Many sisters too.”

“How long are you here then, working on the boat?” Dropping my arm, I leaned against the door. “When do you go home?”

“Six months. Then home six months.”

“Yeah? The pay good?”

“Oh, yes. Lots of money for easy living in the Philippines.”

I nodded. That's what I'd do. I'd pretend my mom was working on a cruise ship. Six months on and six months off sounded like a way better reason for her not to be here. Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so bad, the tears my dad hadn't shed that were scraping me raw anyway.

Meet Isaiah:

The ship was so big. As big as a mountain. But I was used to twenty people on a mountain, not a million people inside one.

I craned my neck to get a better look at the girl ten or so people ahead of us. Of course, Gram thought I was watching the pretty boy with the sparkling teeth and preppy outfit.

“Keep your eyes in your head, Zay,” she muttered.

It didn't matter how many times I told her I liked girls. She couldn't imagine why else I'd want to work with an all-male ranch staff in the middle of nowhere, Montana.

The girl's blonde hair was a shiny mane, and her outfit—dark skinny jeans, a white tee, and huge turquoise earrings—was perfect: no frills, no bullshit.

Gram swatted me with her purse. I glared at her.

“Nice to have a week off, Zay?” My great-aunt Ethel asked.

We were here on her dime, bought company for an old woman, so I muttered out a response and went back to the hair. My fingers twitched to feel it. Not in a creepy way, but brushing out horses was the most relaxing part of my day.

“He's got more 'an a week,” Gram said. “I'm not sendin' him back.”

My throat dried up. She couldn't be serious.

“I mean it too.” Nodding, she grabbed her suitcase. Marched forward a few paces.

I hurried after her. “I can't quit in the middle of a summer with no notice. Ike needs me.”

“I gave Ike your notice the day you left. He knows.”

“Why would you do that?”

Hands on her hips. “You had a girlfriend yet?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah, right. I know how many of them're up at that ranch.”

“Gram, I'm watching that blonde girl, okay?” I pointed over her head. The boy who was way too preppy for me turned. He put up a few fingers and waved.

“That prissy one with the frown?” Ethel asked. “She looks mean.”

“Oh, he's just tellin’ me what he knows I wanna hear. Tellin’ time's over, Zay. You need to get your life together.”

“What's wrong with my life?” What I had was what I wanted. All I'd ever want. My fist clenched. I couldn't lose the ranch, not after I'd lost everything else.

“Them boys aren't gonna make you a family, and that ranch ain't gonna make you a future.” She shuffled her feet forward.

I pulled my cowboy hat down. The blonde was slipping inside the ship anyway. “They are my family, and if being a grunt ranch hand is my future, I'm happy with that.”

“I'm your family,” she snapped. “And you're happy with it because you're seventeen and you don't know no better.”

“Gram, please?” It was a desperate whisper.

“It's all the poor boy has left,” Aunt Ethel pointed out, not looking at me. Not even for a second. As if I might miss that I was the poor boy she was talking about.

Gram crossed her arms. “Building his future is more important than what he does or does not have left.”

“Other people we know have been gay,” Aunt Ethel said. “Jeannie from the corner, for example, and you never worried about her future.”

Gram glared at her. “Jeannie wasn't my grandson.”

“Then make me a deal,” I said, because this was something we did.

“Yes.” Aunt Ethel smiled before turning back to Gram. “He gets a girlfriend, you let him go back.”

Gram looked like she was face-to-face with a skunk. “What's a girlfriend gonna prove?”

“For one, it'll prove he likes girls.”

“He can right fake that. Anyway, there's more 'an one reason I don't want him at that ranch.”

“Give the boy some hope, Liza. He's only seventeen. He's still got time to work his life out.”

Gram eyed me for a full two minutes. I counted the ticks in my head while studying the wooden decking, how it barely moved beneath my feet. Hope was suddenly the color of that girl's hair, and I talked myself into wanting the rest of her too, no matter what she ended up being. Because now, with Gram's curt nod, it seemed she was the only way I’d get back home.

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This review was originally posted on Baroness' Book Trove

Triplicity

by J Mercer