BR: Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

This book is inspired by the World War 1, except for one twist: the nations are classed under two main fighters. They're the Darwinists and the Clankers (Of course you've always got your neutrals like say, Switzerland). The Darwinists are a group that use biology and natural life to create their weapons of war, taken after Charles Darwin himself. The Clankers, as their name suggests, use large machinery and clanky bits of metal for their warcraft machinery.
In the midst of the brewing way are two young adolescents: Deryn and Alek. Deryn is from the Darwinist side, a young girl who pretends to be a boy so she can go fight the war. Alek is brought up with Clanker beliefs and is a prince taht must be protected by all costs so that he may bring peace in the future. Long story lol and from this war, the strangest of alliances is formed.

This book was soo strange! Scott Westerfeld always brings something new to the table. The genre is described as steampunk? A blend of history, fiction and futurism. It is a completely new world when you read this, yet Westerfeld is clearly influenced by the evolution of science, engineering and politics. The narration itself has a very comical feel to it. People were dying and getting squished to death by metal and yet it was described as if an ant was getting squashed. I guess this book makes it very safe for children to read LOL. Like, there was a lot of action (well duh, its war), but somehow, there appears to be almost no violence? Lots of guns and deaths here, but no pain. Maybe because the heroine and hero are about 15, so their voice is very naive and funny to read.

Westerfeld's creations were also sooo imaginative. His descriptions of some of these contraptions were so confusing yet cool to read about. And did I mention the wonderful illustrations by Keith Thompson?

There are such beautiful scatterings of drawings like these throughout the novel which help you understand Westerfeld's descriptions. What you see in that picture is a Darwinist 'warship'. It is basically a massive whale that's been modified to function efficiently. Under the skin, there are glow worms that light the innards (which are passageways of the 'ship'). It runs basically like a hot air balloon, staying afloat via the release of Hydrogen from these bees that eat the flowers that also live inside the whale (long story). Reading about it is really wonderful. LOL and at the bottom of the whale are a shit tonne of cilia that help it steer the way. And there are also these bats that swallow metal plates and they fly to the enemy aircraft and fire the discs. It's amazing. It is probably a little inhumane though, the thought of combining different animals together to form a machine and my heart just about cringed when the poor whale was getting shot at (its still alive). So yes, the world building is simply AMAAAZING. There's this really beautiful map at the start too to show you the alliances across Europe which is worth spending 15 minutes looking at.

But the characters. I found the two main characters to be quite hard to stand. It was literally (it really is literally cause its a book LOL) only the plot and the beautiful world that kept me reading. They were too impulsive in the way that led to dire consequences and much too rash so it was just so aggravating to see them walk into their own peril. Alek is a bit more bearable than Deryn because while he's just stupid, Deryn's mean and much too up herself. I really admire the drawings of them though. Deryn is a girl pretending to be a boy and Keith Thompson draws it so well! You can see her feminine features coming through and the angles and shading and everything is soooo pretty.

It really reminds me of The Series of Unfortunate Events with the pencil drawings, the gradation and the angular faces. Argh swoooon.

The plot is straight forward enough. If you know what happens in a war, then you have your plot. It's an easy read if you're bored and looking to be wowed by a new world.

For me, the standout point were all the different creations and how they fare against one another. And the gorgeousss drawings. Everything else was kind of lacklustre. I definitely enjoyed his other books better. But its not to fault this book, steampunk really isn't my thing - I mean, I found City of Bones utterly shit despite the world falling at its knees.