Charlotte, also becomes the Captain thus suggesting a preservation of the class system even while gender roles have been challenged. Indeed Charlotte's inability to see things as they are rather than through her class-conscious viewpoint creates much of the conflict in the book. The book also features a narrator, Charlotte, who knows she is telling a story. This element of metafiction is important to the novel. Charlotte's narrative style is similar to 19th-century travelogues. The book opens with "an important warning" and the narrator, Charlotte, defending the right to tell her story because it "is worth relating even if it did happen years ago". Even while Charlotte undergoes changes as a character, her narrative voice remains constant. Charlotte can, however, act as an unreliable narrator to the outside world as when she records in the log that Jaggery fell to his death, so he is remembered positively rather than as a murderer to the outside world. Reception The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle received a positive critical reaction when it was published. In its starred review of the book, Kirkus Reviews called it "tautly plotted, vividly narrated, carefully researched: a thrilling tale deepened by its sober look at attitudes that may have been more exaggerated in the past but that still persist". Cathryn Mercier in Five Owls review journal noted the "innovative mixture of history and fiction" and said the book was "expertly crafted and consistently involving, it is sure to excite, enthrall, and challenge readers." Horn Book, giving it its highest rating of outstanding, said the book was "a rousing adventure story". Barbara Elleman writing for Booklist contended it was not just an adventure story, saying the dynamic between Charlotte and Zachariah "allows the story to rise above swashbuckling adventure, though that element is there too. From its riveting opening line...to its surprise ending, this is a story harder to forget." Judy Eftekhar praised the book for Charlotte's ability to grow as a person while remaining true to her character. However, the author has also been criticized for giving Charlotte too modern a sensibility, effectively making her a "time-traveler" in her own culture. According to Anne Scott MacLeod, authors who "evade the common realities of the societies they write about" and "give their heroines freer choices than their cultures would in fact have offered", are misrepresenting history. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle has been repeatedly listed as a