The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe

ehhhhhhhh so like, years ago I enjoyed Ally Condie's Matched trilogy more than I expected to–it sounded like a pretty flat, bland dystopia, and it was–but the writing was lovely and I cared about the characters enough for me to overlook the flat worldbuilding. This book doesn't.....have that for me. I never got invested enough in Poe for me to overlook basic-shit like what the fuck happened that a 17-year-old with no particular training is this world's best inventor?? It seems like it's a harsh world where life expectancy is short but like, it seems like she went out on ONE voyage as an inexperienced crew member, was traumatized, and came back with a good enough design that the notoriously cruel Admiral spared her life so she could build ship armor? Why didn't the ship already have armor? WTF?

Also like, in-world the characters are confused about why the Admiral wants gold but IMO the explanation never added up. He wanted it to build an airplane??? Also the technology didn't add up. Like they have these fancy boats and a fucking airplane but like, no phones or radio? Radio is old, why doesn't your dystopia have radio communication at least, except for plot reasons. JUSTIFY YOUR LACK OF RADIO TO ME, ALLY.

>:(

Also seems like everyone in this dystopia is straight and white, for no particular reason.