Well, I've finished reading Leviathan, and have shipped it off to Sophie for the exorbitant cost of $25--more than twice what the book itself cost. I'm going to have to find a cheaper shipping service for the future. Also, the route of the book has been determined and two more people have joined our project! From the US, the book is going to New Zealand, South Africa, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, and Israel, in that order.
I liked the book--but it did occur to me that choosing to read the first book in a trilogy, when the last book in that trilogy hasn't yet been written, let alone published, is a bad idea. Especially because this book doesn't really end with a sense of closure. There are too many mysteries left unsolved!
However, it did fulfill my love of steampunk. The Clanker v. Darwinist perspective on World War I was really cool, though I wonder how it was determined which side would be which...? And I'm not entirely sure how all of this Darwinist stuff would work, because it seems that all the animals which were engineered wouldn't be too happy just working for humans, and I really think Leviathan, when deflated, should have probably suffocated, but then that's probably just me being a difficult reader by refusing to suspend my disbelief. And some of my comments will probably drive Sophie crazy, because I spent a long time drawing parallels between Deryn's situation and that of Alanna in Tamora Pierce's book Alanna: The First Adventure, in which a girl passes herself off as a boy.
I also reached the conclusion that pretty much every character in the book is a complete idiot, but then again, we're all complete idiots, so I suppose that's to be forgiven.
Anyway, though, the dream has now become a reality, because the project has actually been enacted! Hooray! Huzzah! Yippee! Now onto continuing my steampunk kick with The Golden Compass, because it totally is steampunk, even if I didn't realize it the first, oh, dozen times I read it.
Happy reading!
~Raye

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