Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines Book 1) - Philip Reeve

Publisher Summary:

"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 ... The great traction city London is on the move again. It has been lying low, skulking in the hills to avoid the bigger, faster, hungrier cities loose in the Great Hunting Ground. But now, as its great mountain of metal lumbers along in hot pursuit of its quarry, the sinister plans it has harbored for years can finally start to unfold behind its soaring walls... Thaddeus Valentine, London's Head Historian and most famous archaeologist, and his daughter, Katherine, are down in The Gut when the young assassin with the black scarf strikes. Only the quick intervention of Tom, a lowly third-class apprentice, prevents Valentine from being stabbed in the heart. Madly racing after the fleeing girl, Tom suddenly glimpses her hideous face: scarred from forehead to jaw, nose a smashed stump, a single eye glaring back at him. "Look at what your Valentine did to me!" she screams. "Ask him! Ask him what he did to Hester Shaw!" And with that she jumps down the waste chute to her death. Minutes later Tom finds himself tumbling down the same chute and stranded in the Out-Country, a sea of mud scored by the huge caterpillar tracks of cities like the one now steaming off over the horizon."

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My Review:

Rating: 8.5/10

To start off, I loved this book. It did have somewhat of a slow beginning, but once I got past it, I found it amazing. Hester was a really interesting character, and her contrast with Tom was pleasing for me. It was really natural, and I didn't feel like any of the characters actually had too much of a fake personality.

I have to say that I loved the plot of the book, and the set up was very new to me (even though I've said that for basically every dystopian review). The whole idea of moving cities was kind of hard to grasp at first, but once I did, the book became very interesting. The plot developed with two lines, and each had it's own subplot type thing. I enjoyed finding out new information about Hester's situation and the state of the cities. I like that this was made into a series, because there is so much world building going on that I can't help but want to know more about the rest of the cities. I love that there were also two different types of living involved, and that the conflict between those was not so black and white, almost mapping onto real life.

Once again, I felt that the beginning was a little boring to me, but after I got through it I couldn't put the book down. I loved that Reeve included two different perspectives and made them feel different through the writing. Hester and Katherine felt different, and this worked well because of how different their situations were. The flow of the book was smooth, and the events were well connected. Reeve created a full world while not completely saturating the book with world building. I think it's one of the books that have a good balance between creating a world while moving the plot along, something that I think is kind of rare.

Overall, definitely a book series I would recommend. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was after I got through the ending, and I think that most people would be as well. It's enjoyable, interesting, and definitely a page turner. This is one of my go-to reads for dystopian fiction.