REVIEW for Leviathan

Another big thank you goes out to Michelle at Simon & Schuster for sending me this book!





TITLE: Leviathan

AUTHOR: Scott Westerfeld



GENRE: Sci-Fi



RATING: 4 Stars



I have to say that Leviathan first attracted me because of the absolutely beautiful cover - yes, I am a "judge a book (partly) by its cover" kind of girl and Leviathan gets my vote for "best cover" of the year. Having said that, I also have to own up to the fact that I felt completely intimidated by this novel - just opening it up and leafing through it was a little scary - considering this is not the type of novel I normally read. Having said that, I had heard so much good stuff about this book, that I HAD to read it.

It took me a while to find my bearings especially since this novel is set in WW1, but not the actual WW1 that we (I) know, but rather a bit of alternate reality type of WW1. I found the author's imagination riveting - he managed to take actual situations and give them each his own special spin and take. I especially liked the storyline involving the Clanker and Darwinists. I loved the revisionist history which was incorporated into the Clanker and Darwinists "battles".

As I mentioned, there was alot going on in this book and I am sure that I missed some of the more subtle writing. I did enjoy some of the main characters (and there were many, many characters here). Particularly Alek who seems to be the one who grows (matures) the most during this story. I liked the Deryn character, although I found her a tad annoying at times and was not sure what exactly her role was.

Still, this was a very good read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.