Bry's Reviews > Leviathan
My rating:
Leviathan (Leviathan, #1)
by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson
by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson
Bry's review
bookshelves:
2010,
historical-fiction,
steampunk,
young-adult,
fantasy,
rubbish
May 03, 10
Read from April 24 to May 03, 2010
My first impression of this book is that it is beautifully done. The map on the inside covers are amazing with the details and colors. Plus the illustrations throughout the book are fantastic. Full page sketches of a scene that are highly detailed and stunning. The text itself though is not written for teens but for young pre-teens, and the characters are said to be 15-16 but appear 12 or so in the illustrations. It just all sounds and feels so juvenile. They also think, sound, and act juvenile. Every decision is not quite thought through, reckless, and without understanding of consequences.
Also I don't really buy the fact that a girl dressed as a boy could really fool EVERYBODY. I mean yes, she may fool some people's eyes but there are other senses. Not mention if she was really 15 she should be way more boy crazy than she is here. Yeah it's WWI and not modern day but come on she still should have been more noticing of boys. The same goes for Alex despite the grief.
What seals the nail in the coffin that is this rubbish is the fact that there is no ending whats so ever. Yes it is a a part of a series, but even a series novel should have some sort of ending, something, anything, that answers just a single question brought up in the book. But no, not in this book. Sadly this was a horrible waste of my time.
Also I don't really buy the fact that a girl dressed as a boy could really fool EVERYBODY. I mean yes, she may fool some people's eyes but there are other senses. Not mention if she was really 15 she should be way more boy crazy than she is here. Yeah it's WWI and not modern day but come on she still should have been more noticing of boys. The same goes for Alex despite the grief.
What seals the nail in the coffin that is this rubbish is the fact that there is no ending whats so ever. Yes it is a a part of a series, but even a series novel should have some sort of ending, something, anything, that answers just a single question brought up in the book. But no, not in this book. Sadly this was a horrible waste of my time.
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Reading Progress
| 05/02/2010 | page 385 |
|
87.5% | "Must finish. Must. Just to say I did." 5 comments |
| 04/28/2010 | page 320 |
|
72.73% | "Making myself finish. Really not all that interested in the characters or plot though. Meh." |
| 04/26/2010 | page 174 |
|
39.55% | "Still just meh but I'm pushing through." |
| 04/26/2010 | page 98 |
|
22.27% | "Took a while to get into but seems interesting enough now." |
Comments (showing 1-26 of 26) (26 new)
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So you're saying every teenage girl automatically becomes a dribbling idiot around a boy? That they can't have anything more important going on in their lives like trying to build herself her dream career of serving the army? What good is a female soldier if she falls to pieces every time she sees a man? & you honestly believe that a teenage boy who just lost both his parents should intanly forget his grief the moment a girl walks by?
Believe it or not, not every teen is this pathetic & weak willed. If you like that kind of soppy, love ridden teen angst stick with Twilight.
Oh please. This book may have attempted to be deep with the characters (career goals and grief) but over a long term period of time natural urges will come to light. I am not saying they should want to be screwing the other, and no I don't think the girl had to become a dibbling idiot around a boy but she would notice if he were at least cute. NO ONE is that in their own head and unobservant in that amount of time. And again the same goes for Alex. If they only met for an hour in passing is one thing but they spend half the book in one another's company. And when did I say that she was pathetic and weak willed? How does noticing a guy or appreciating his company make a girl pathetic and weak willed? And why does either character noticing the other in any way, shape or form during this book have to be angsty?? Why can't it just be acknowledged as they are teenagers and then continue to move on with the story?? I am not saying they have to fall in love or anything like that. Just that most teens - scratch that - all humans at least NOTICE one another.
You were the one who said she should have been "boy crazy", not just noticing boys. It doesn't have to be deep, there are plenty of adult books that don't mention romance at all, why should all young adult book have to have some form of romance. So the author decided he didn't want to write a romance. If that's a problem go read an actual romance then. Same question back to you, why do they have to find each other attractive before they can move on in the book? What if they genuinely don't find the other good looking? Not every teen - scratch that - person has to find any member of the opposite sex attractive. What if one of them is gay?
& that's what grief does, it distracts you from everything, all the things you would have normally noticed in life.
Fine boy crazy may have been a poor choice of words, whatever. Noticing is still expected though. And if they didn't find one another attractive that is still noticing. And of course there are adult books that never mention romance, but people past the age of 18 are generally no longer experienceing puberty and having their hormones going crazy (excluding menopause, etc). In terms of greif he wasn't even addressing it most of the time. Saving your own life from people chasing you distracts him as it should. Why wouldn't he look for any other distraction as well to keep from dealing with it?
Look either way I didn't like the book. Oh well. The characters were only 1 of the flaws I saw with it. And their lack of notice for another only 1 of the flaws within them.
And why do you keep telling me to go read other books?? It is possible for people to like a variety of genres. I don't expect them to be the same as one another, or even take from one another. I just expect authors to portray human characters with actual human tendencies.
I find it interesting that some readers are into attacking someone's negative reviews without even reading the book! I see it more and more on GR that you simply can't express a negative opinion without someone jumping at your throat. Do we all have to love everything we read? What is the point of critical reading then? BTW, Bry, I also didn't like the book, for many reasons besides flawed characterization.
I noticed she had it marked on her TBR list too. I definitely don't mind when someone disagrees with me but at least read the book to know what you are talking about.
And your right Tatiana, this book had so many flaws. But I guess she just wanted to pick out my one generalization and ignor the rest of it. Oh well!
I'm not saying it was a good or a bad book I'm saying you can't get annoyed at a book for not having romance if it's not meant to be a romance. Everyone deals with grief differently. Should I say that because (I'm assuming) you haven't lost your parents that you don't know what you're talking about? I'm not picking on you one review, seriously, don't flatter yourself. & how am I meant to argue against all the books other flaws if I haven't read it? My problem isn't that I disagree with you calling the book bad, but that quite frankly I found your comment about the lead female to be sexist. I'm sure (I hope) that it wasn't intentional but that's how I found it.By the way, "she" has a name thanks.
No I dont think every book needs to have romance. But when it is ignored by the author it is just silly. This ignorance on the author's behalf would be more obvious to you if you had read the book. And I also dont think my comment was sexist as I said the same applied to Alex.
Bry, I read the book a while ago, and *ducks* I liked it, but I don't recall (and it's not fresh in my mind) that there was a romance potential in the first book. I remember the female lead character dressing like a boy, and joining part of the "air" force, and doing stuff that a smaller boy would do. I liked the book because I attended a book signing where Scott Westerfeld actually explained the book with visual aids, so it did make more sense when I read it. But I do understand why lots of people did not like it.
I did love the illustrations and visual aids throughout the book, and the maps at the beginning and end. Having those helped me to understand a lot (like the machine/animals and the layout of the countries). They were super helpful.
The premise seemed really cool and I liked the science ideas in the book but the plot really fell through for me. I thought there were many holes, and that a lot of stuff didn't make sense. The characters just annoyed me. I didn't understand most of the reasonings, and what I did get didn't seem genuine and just came off as flat.
This was my 1st Westerfield book but I still want to read the Uglies series. This book didn't turn me off to him completely at least.
I enjoy him as an author. He has a unique perspective of things and a wry sense of humor. The Uglies series is not fantastic, but I did enjoy it up til the last book, which did not seem to fit. He develops vocabulary for his books and if you like the Uglies, you'll like the language. If you hate the Uglies, this language will drive you batty.He has some other stuff - rather original ideas - in Peeps where vampirism is caused by a parasite. The book is full of information on parasites almost to the point of being a little TMI, but it was very different from all the stuff out there. I enjoyed that book very much.
His Midnighters series is really neat. If you are looking for holes in his writing, there are probably some holes in the plot, but again, I found this work very original and also a great vocab builder as 13 letter words have protective powers in this world. Worth reading just to build vocabulary. You might like the Midnighters series more than the Uglies.
I have the first book in the midnighter series on my shelf and just havent gotten around to reading it yet. I'm hoping I like them though. The Peeps book is also on my TBR list. Love the parasite idea!
Okay, I can't be the only person who noticed that Deryn clearly wants to make sweet, sweet love to Alek and that Alek, in turn, has like the world's biggest mancrush on "Dylan." Yet this thread is giving me that impression.
Tatiana wrote: "I find it interesting that some readers are into attacking someone's negative reviews without even reading the book! I see it more and more on GR that you simply can't express a negative opinion wi..."LOL, the chick that was criticizing my review before reading the book has apparently read it and rated it 5 stars. I just don't get it! The book was awful.
I thought it was a very good book. The writing was simple, but I'm a technology geek, so the descriptions grabbed me. The Alek-Deryn interaction seemed entirely a normal encounter of two teenage males ( one pretending to be), and the author did describe that Deryn was somewhat attracted to him near the end. The second book seriously addresses that. Also I loved the art. So, for me, the pros far outweighed the cons. (I'm not attacking your review, I understand that you have a different opinion of the book than I do, but I'm just expressing my thoughts)
Matthew wrote: "I thought it was a very good book. The writing was simple, but I'm a technology geek, so the descriptions grabbed me. The Alek-Deryn interaction seemed entirely a normal encounter of two teenage ma..."
If only I had made it to the 2nd book to read more about their relationship/interaction but the first book was just such a failure for me I couldn't make myself read the 2nd book. You are right about the art though, the maps especially at the beginning and end of the book were so gorgeous and was what initially attracted me to the book in the first place! And thanks for sharing, everyone has an opinion, and it would be boring if we all agreed all the time!
It was a very good book, and I even liked the characters here more than the characters in Uglies. Yes, I rated it 5 stars. I was stuck between 4 stars and 5 stars and bumped up my rating because of the amazing artwork. How are you to say how a 15 year old acts in 1914? It was also hinting that Deryn was extremely under developed and was skinny. And about her fooling other people into thinking she's a boy, have you seen Mulan?
But I did agree with you about the book's pacing. The ending was bad and I also hated how Deryn and Alek finally met so late in the book. I'll be reading Goliath anyway.
I take offense to you saying that a 15 year old girl has to be extremely boy-aware. Either you're not a 15-year-old girl and like to classify entire groups of people, or you're a pathetic 15-year-old girl.
And about Deryn not fooling everyone about being a boy. Back then, pants meant boy and skirts meant girl. Pants and high voice meant young man, no matter how feminine he might appear. It didn't take much to fool people. Lots of girls in history dressed as boys and fooled countless people. 'Dr James Barry' wasn't discoverd to be a woman until she died. And get this, she WAS'T BOY CRAZY.
NO ENDING?! have you ever heard of this new thing called a CLIFF HANGER!!!!!????? the book was basically a way to introduce readers to a whole new world and set things up for future books. If you can't appreciate that, then just don't read series books anymore. Your obviously not mature enough to understand the concept of extended plots.
and this book was written for younger teens. don't act like all 15 year olds don't make juvenile and reckless dicisions too. It's part of what they do.
Firemakesmesmile wrote: "I take offense to you saying that a 15 year old girl has to be extremely boy-aware. Either you're not a 15-year-old girl and like to classify entire groups of people, or you're a pathetic 15-year-o..."Wow! Oh my god, thank you!! Your comments literally made me laugh out loud. At first I was going to respond to your comment as if it were legitimate, but have decided against it for this reason alone - you call me pathetic, immature, and basically yell at me with your caps locks. So I find it beyond hilarious that someone who is resorting to name calling is calling me immature.
By the way - read a series that has an actual ending for that installment as well as a cliff hanger for the overall plot and you will see that to be a series doesn't mean you have to leave your readers completely unsatisfied.
I'm sorry, you automatically think that a 15-16 year old girl in the middle or, what is effectively the first World War, should be more boy crazy?
Kaitlyn wrote: "I'm sorry, you automatically think that a 15-16 year old girl in the middle or, what is effectively the first World War, should be more boy crazy?"I think characters should be made to be real and have normal human urges and emotions. At 15-16 years old kids are going through extreme hormonal changes and becoming sexually aware is a one of them.
