It was more about family, both biological and found. This had a romance but very much as a side plotline. It was a refreshing change from the Titanic movie which is obviously this epic love story. Those platonic relationships were the focus of the story and I enjoyed that. The prejudice they experience is hard to read, but the story is still brimming with family and love. This also touches upon the Chinese Exclusion Act and you see how that is a major obstacle for these characters. As heartbreaking as it was, it felt right. The ending, speaking off, definitely is divisive but I enjoyed it. It was very easy to forget where the story was actually set. You know it's going to be tragic but it didn't read like a tragedy. I liked that a lot of the book was life on the Titanic, giving you a chance to get attached to these characters even though you know things won't end entirely happy for them. Valora is hoping to gain passage to America as part of the Ringling Brothers circus. I loved Valora and Jamie, the British-Chinese acrobatic twins. Obviously it's a fictional account, but it still taught me about the 6 Chinese survivors who weren't given the same respect as their white counterparts. But, Stacey Lee did a fantastic job of exposing the untold stories of the Chinese survivors of the Titanic. This preamble is all to say that I spent a lot of time googling while reading this, and because of my fascination with shipwrecks I was kind of predisposed to like this. I also loved the Magic Tree House Tonight on the Titanic book. I just remember learning about the Edmund Fitzgerald and then spending hours googling and on the phone with my friend talking about it in grade 3. When I was a kid I had a fascination with shipwrecks and literally couldn't tell you why.

The luck of the titanic