Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles, #1)

by Philip Reeve

He cut through the Twenty-First Century gallery, past the big plastic statues of Pluto and Mickey, animal-headed gods of lost America.

Was this what falling in love was like? Not something big and amazing that you knew about straight away, like in a story, but a slow thing that crept over you in waves until you woke up one day and found that you were head-over-heels with someone quite unexpected, like an Apprentice Engineer?

I have never liked babies — nasty creatures, leak at both ends and have no respect for ceramics.