Review: Voyage of the Defiance by S. E. Smith

Reviewer's Rating: 5

5.0Overall score

Get swept away by life’s challenges

Voyage of the Defiance By SE Smith

Young Adult Action & Adventure

Released October 6, 2015

S.E. Smith LLC

Series: Breaking Free, Book 1

Reviewed by Jean

An act of defiance that will either kill her or change her life forever…

Sixteen year old Makayla Summerlin enjoyed one thing in her crazy, messed-up existence: hanging with her friends at school. Her life is uprooted when she suddenly finds herself forced to live with the grandfather she barely remembers.

One act of defiance will change her life forever when she sets sail in her grandfather’s old sailboat after she has trouble adjusting to her new home. On a journey that will challenge everything she has ever believed about herself, Makayla must overcome her fears if she, and a surprising stowaway, are to survive.

Get swept away by life’s challenges

What an awesome story! I’ve been reading Ms. Smith’s books for several years now. Admittedly, I gravitate to the sci-fi and paranormal romances. When I was offered this one she prefaced that it was a YA and not like her other books. I didn’t care. She wrote it and I was going to read it. I’ve loved everything else she’s written, so why not this one?I’ve read a number of YA’s in the past few months and found I actually liked them. You might wonder why I was so surprised. Honestly, it’s because, with all too many previous YA’s, I had a hard time connecting with the characters. They were so young and their issues so “trivial” compared to an adult’s. I was having a real hard time putting myself back in the mindset of my younger days. I think my other problem is that I wasn’t your typical teen even when I was one. I think in reading this one I’ve discovered the key to just which YA’s appeal to me. I truly love the ones with action, adventure and elements that take you beyond the norm like paranormal or sci-fi. While these stories still deal with the typical teen issues to some degree, they also take you beyond them.

Voyage of the Defiance definitely took me there. I was able to connect with Makayla early in the story long before all the action and adventure started happening. I think both young and old will be able to connect with the characters Ms. Smith has created. Some of the struggles Makayla encounters in life are so ageless. They affect us all. Things like family estrangements, addiction to prescription meds, hiding parts of ourselves even from those closest to us, struggling to meet the expectations of others, having to rely on others in order to succeed, loneliness, loss and living our dreams. This is an adventure that touches on them all.

In Voyage of the Defiance, Makayla is a sixteen-year-old girl struggling to keep things together at home. Her mom has become addicted to prescription medications after suffering an accident. Every day is a struggle to deal with the addiction issues and her mom’s deadbeat boyfriend. Makayla’s one joy in life is her friendships. When her mother is hospitalized and she’s forced to go with a grandfather she barely recalls, life adds even more challenges to her full plate. She spends the rest of her summer helping her grandfather refit his sailboat and relearning to sail. Her relationship with her grandfather and uncle is guarded but slowly building steam. Makayla also meets Brian. Two years older, Brian and Makayla spend the summer working together and a budding romance ensues. But summer ends and Brian has a future to pursue. A new school, bullies and worries about her mother hold all of Makayla’s attention. Dealing with a pesky classmate who is hell bent on getting her cooperation on an assigned project doesn’t even hit the radar. When the last straw falls, a fight precipitates rash decisions on Makayla’s part. Dropping out of school and heading home to Tampa are her sole focus to the exclusion of all else.

Tyrell has struggled all his life with societies expectations. He’s a poor kid living with his grandmother in gangland. He’s a big boy so everyone expects him to be a jock… the last thing Tyrell wants to be. No, Tyrell wants to be a photojournalist. He has big plans and dreams to fulfill. Getting a passing grade on this assigned project is a make it or break it prospect and he’s not going to let some white pampered princess quash his dreams. When he follows Makayla from her home to her grandfather’s sailboat and inadvertently falls asleep aboard, he certainly doesn’t expect to find himself kidnapped, out to sea and on the adventure of a lifetime. What a wonderful opportunity to finish his project. That’s one thing I loved about Tyrell. He has a habit of making the best of a situation and making a negative into a positive.

Life at sea is already a challenging prospect, especially for a boy who can’t swim. For Makayla, remembering everything she has learned, navigating, sailing and just surviving is a challenge, let alone dealing with a pesky jock stowaway. When stormy seas bring an unavoidable hurricane these two have all they can handle thrown at them. Discovering each other in the midst of their voyage and getting past misconceptions is enlightening. This is one friendship that is definitely fired in the crucible of life and chaos, one I have no doubt will last a lifetime. In the end the two not only make discoveries about each other, but they get a real clue about just what makes themselves who they are as an individual.

Voyage of the Defiance is all about self-discovery. It’s also about letting go and letting someone reach for the answers they need on their own. That’s a real hard one for some of us to do when we watch our children grow. My hat is off to grandpa, Henry because I don’t know that I could have let my grandchild walk the path Makayla did. I’d like to think I could, but I’m not sure I really could. Voyage of the Defiance was an awesome story and had me laughing and crying throughout. I couldn’t put it down and that meant a sleepless night. Morning found me writing a quick note to Ms. Smith as tears streamed down my cheeks. If you want to check out my conversation with her please check out the interview linked below. If you want to know if you should read this one, my answer is a resounding… YES!