Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve (BOOK REVIEW)

 

“It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.”

Summary─୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ

The great traction city London has been skulking in the hills to avoid the bigger, faster, hungrier cities loose in the Great Hunting Ground. But now, the sinister plans of Lord Mayor Mangus Crome can finally unfold.

London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon London will feed.

In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage -- and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.

Review──୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ

On Goodreads and Google, this book is recommend for kids around 9-12. I'm not in that category and yet, I still read this book. I think that alone explains why I did not like this book. It's for younger kids and with the amount of books I've read, and good solid literature I've been exposed to, this book fell flat. So why did I even read this book? Two words: book club. Yeah, I was forced. (jkjk). I'm really glad that I got to read this book with my friends and laugh about it and even have disagreements on it. It was very interesting to see who liked it and who didn't (iykyk).

The plot of this book is really odd. Like, really odd. I don't think I've ever read a book in the steam-punk A.K.A science-fiction category. So, because of that, the whole vibe of this book was very obscure and weird to me. Hey, I'm willing to try out different genres, but it was still a little surprising coming into this book.
The entire world that we're thrown into is wild. London is on a track. It moves. Crazy stuff. I did the like the London vibe though. That posh and gloomy setting is always my favorite. 

The main climax of the plot for this book was quite underwhelming. I didn't feel involved or invested in the outcome. I love stories with depth and detail and high stakes. This book did not deliver on that for me. 

The main characters that we get in this book are very very interesting. Tom was kinda shallow and Hester was really the typical girl-hero that, 9 yr old me, wanted to be. I mean come on, she's basically a ninja. But yeah, since this is a book for younger ages, the characters followed suit and were also very young and childish. 

We had some characters that were also not human; a monster. I can't forget the pirates. Let's just say that all the characters were very diverse. Lots and lots of different kinds of people from different walks of life. 

Shout out to Katherine. (you know who you are) Mr. G loves this character. She was alright, in my opinion. She didn't really stick out to me with any specific qualities that I liked, but that's how I felt about most of this book. 

Yes, I know I'm being very critical about this entire book, but I'm being honest. This book wasn't relatively bad, just not for me. I think a lot of younger kids would really enjoy this story. Something was always happening and the adventure theme was really consistent. This book just hit a few years too late. Younger me would have definitely enjoyed this book a lot more. 

I give this book a 3 out of 10 and recommend it to ages 9+ 

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Happy Reading!

-Ariana :)