Mortal Engines: The Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve - Book Review

on Goodreads

3.5 out of 5 stars

Listened to this book on Audiobook (I do own a copy but had multiple reads going at the same time and this was the one I chose for Audio). Let me say Barnaby Edwards can read a great story!!



I had a hard time choosing between 3.5 and 4 stars for this book because ultimately I really liked this stories premise. It was intriguing and captivating and I do intend on continuing the Hungry City Chronicles series. I settled on 3.5 and here is why... below are my dislikes, likes, wrap up and of course towards the very end (spoiler alert) some feels about the book spoilers included.

Dislikes:

There was one consistent dislike or, frustration is more appropriate, with this book I just wanted more character development and back story for the world. It always felt like I was just on the edge of knowing, discovering, learning more about something or someone and then action would ensue and we wouldn't return to that thing I was just on the cusp of learning. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good fast paced and edge of your seat action filled book, which this was, but I actually really loved the world Philip Reeve was building here so I wanted to see more of that! I wanted to understand the why of the world, I wanted characters to explain their whys more.. why did they make the choices they made and end up where they were. There were always small brief details but I just wanted a bit more and I think I would have felt a little more fulfilled in the journey.



Likes:

The pace, it really just kept moving along. I never felt bored and I never felt less than entertained. I also liked the characters from what I did get to learn about them. They were multi-dimensional and never felt flat as far as their current thoughts and passions were concerned. My favourites being Fang and Shrike (or Grike now I believe). They were all encompassing characters that truly gripped me once they entered in the story. I loved the steam punk elements which is unusual for me and I LOVED the all to interesting idea of cities becoming predators and moving around eating other cities to survive. Again loved the premise of this story, loved the ideas Philip Reeves delved into which is why I will be continuing.

My next book in this series will be Night Flights which is a prequel of short stories that I hope gives me all the extra details I really wanted from this first book. None-the-less I still really enjoyed myself with Mortal Engines and it is definitely a book I would recommend for lovers of unique distopians, a bit of fantasy and a whole lot of steam punk! But enough about my thoughts.. have you read it? Did you like it? Have you continued the series? Is this on your TBR list? Let me know in the comments below!

Renee
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SPOILERS

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OMG.... that end.. honestly I had to immediately go and check out if the other books included any of the characters from this book as their was really no body left!!!!! I was so shocked Mr. Reeve really didn't hold back!

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