Mortal Engines

By the end, I liked this a lot more than I did in the beginning. I almost stopped reading but soldiered on because I'm reading it for my teen book club and I'm always nagging them about finishing books even if they don't like them. (Only for book clubs though. I don't finish books I don't like if I'm just reading them for myself.) I see why this was made into a movie because the end of the book is made for cinematic climaxes. The character development was minimal but as the book progresses I did come to care about the characters like Tom and Hester but also for secondary characters like Anna Fang. The world-building was also vague and disorienting. A far future dystopia where cities, suburbs, and towns ride around the earth consuming smaller cities and towns for their own survival. Why was not made clear but an interesting concept. The anti-Tractionists living behind a wall in sedentary communities provides the dramatic tension. I loved Reeve's Fever Crumb series but stopped reading the first book in the Railhead series. ( )

A fairly decent romp in a far flung future where cities have been turned mobile and eating each other for so long that they've started to starve, having sucked all the resources that they could from other cities.

There are pirates, zombie cyborg ninjas, vague and light political intrigue, sacrifice, questioning your parents or just losing them altogether. So pretty much like Katamari Damacy I guess.

It's generally a light punchy read where two of the main characters journey around the world, bouncing from one situation to the next.

The parts where the novel decided to go I to present tense rather than past tense are painful, though I'm not sure why. These tend to be scenes that the younger characters are not aware of and it seems jarring.

It's a pretty inoffensive steampunky romp. ( )

Es como las novelas juveniles normales, tienen una idea muy buena pero no lo analizan muy profundamente. Los personajes me parecieron planos sin una evolución notablemente visible. La historia no me impacta demasiado hasta el final, no fue bien rematado para mi. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3818419.html

The plot is fairly standard YA (girl meets boy, they are separated, struggle and are eventually reunited) but what really makes it is the setting: a post-apocalyptic steampunk Eurasia where cities have become mobile and eat other cities in a struggle for survival, "municipal Darwinism". It does take quite a special talent to invent a grotesque, fantastic world and also get us to sympathise with the characters who gradually learn just how awful their world really is. He also gives his heroine a particularly memorable back-story to uncover. Recommended. ( )

I went into this book expecting something dark and gritty like The Hunger Games, and while dystopian, the feel of it was actually a bit closer to Treasure Island. A young boy gets caught up on an unexpected adventure with a mysterious girl, and as he unravels the mystery, he also becomes disillusioned with the city and the hero he so idolized.

I enjoyed the diversity of the characters, and that it was very fast paced and full of adventure. I’m pretty sure this series is labeled as YA, but outside of a few bloody bits at the end, it doesn’t contain anything I’d be concerned about my almost 11yr old reading. ( )