Review of Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

This blog post is interesting to me because lately, I’ve been struggling to get in my reading time. I was working for the longest time as a freelancer and contractor, but recently pivoted to an 8-5 job where I’m in an office. It’s not hybrid, so I’m always at home trying to put the puzzle pieces together of how I’ll get my reading done. I also continue working on this blog when I’m not at work, so the Instagram reels I’m fed about a 5-9 feel too real right now.

Anyways, I am trying to find that time to read here and there. Somehow I’m still on track for my Goodreads goal, even though I’ve been slowly giving up on the notion of reading goals in life. I think they can be a little too much pressure and takes the fun off of reading at the end of the day, and I want to read because I want to stay in touch with literature while also pursuing my side career as a writer.

I’ve been finding books online and in my library to read, and something that gets me going is reading not only books that catch my interest, but also picking up a shorter read here and there. I found out about Small Boat online, then decided to check it out because I had no idea about the actual event it was based on.

I ended up reading this book in one sitting, which made sense considering its length. Let’s get into the review before this introduction gets too long!

As a migrant boat sinks in-between national waters, a woman takes the blame for letting it happen.

In its English translation, this book is only 122 pages, but there’s certainly a lot happening in these pages. It’s also based off of a real event where a migrant boat sank in-between the maritime borders of France and England.

The narrator of this book is the woman who took the calls on the French side. As the boat’s problems became abundant and it was sinking, there were initial calls to the French authorities for help. Our narrator is the person who took those calls and ended up telling them that they could not help the migrants.

Her reasoning was because the boat was not in French waters anymore. She claimed that because the migrants were actually in England’s maritime waters, the English were responsible for saving them. Everyone but two people died that day due to the lack of initial help, leaving this woman to shoulder the brunt of the criticism.

In this book she defends her decision. She does not believe that she was the sole reason why these people all died. From the countries and systems that failed them to the reasons why these migrants chose to leave, she deflects the reality of her situation and blames everyone but herself.

The irony is that there is some truth to this, even though she definitely is responsible for all of these peoples’ deaths in the end. Her views are also within the realm of being prejudiced, or even racist, as she makes assumptions about all of these forces in the end that imply she’s not being open minded.

This is a bit of a character study, and I would say that we definitely see how people avoid accountability through this character. People consistently avoid responsibility and twist situations to fit their own worldviews and moral compass, creating a grey area that can be pretty unethical and actually not within their own moral standards for people like themselves.

Overall Thoughts

This is a short read but packs a punch. Considering I knew nothing about this incident, I could sadly say that even if I didn’t know that I could see this happening in our modern world. I feel like I know people like this narrator, which is pretty sad to say.

Anyways, I enjoyed this read a lot. It’s very well-written throughout the course of these 122 pages, and it’s shockingly effective despite its short length. Both really short and really long novels are hard to pull off, and this author did a marvelous job doing just that for this.

I say pick this one up if you’re interested in the plot and premise. It’s a compelling read, that’s for sure, and I feel like it’s worth reading at least once.

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