#Adventure

Rating: 10/10

Age: 13+

Before I get into the review, I gotta admit that I’m somewhat a fan of steampunk. I love the ingenuity that authors take to create this modern world that works on all these cool machines. Even more, they make you wish we lived in a steampunk world (is it just me XD)!

One of my favourite books is Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, not only is every single book he has ever written amazing, but the entire world he creates is fantastic in this series!

In this book, the primary mode of flying IS BY AIRSHIPS!

I wish I could convey the excitement Oppel (gosh, I’m a nerd) invokes through his writing. The way that Matt Cruise (the protagonist) describes the joys of flying is exhilirating. Then he gets caught up with pirates (ON AIRSHIPS, HOW COOL IS THAT), in this whole adventure on a quest for hydrium, the gas that powers airships and most things (Oppel likens this whole industry to petroleum in our world).

So Matt Cruise is a cabin boy aboard this luxury airship that travels to exotic destinations, and one-day dreams of piloting his own airship but is poor and has no connections to an air academy. So he just dreams. 😦

He only feels truly alive whilst flying, and part of his motivation is his Dad’s legacy aboard airships. So he leaves his mother and two sisters in Canada and just like that, he is on his way to Australia.

On this trip, he befriends Kate de Vries, an upper class young woman who’s intent on finding proof of flying panther like creatures, and plans to go to school for zoology after.

Vibrant and stubborn, Kate manages to pull Matt into this adventure that includes pirates AND panthers.

I truly feel like I don’t do this book justice, the first book is amazing, and the next two only get better. Each book chronicles unique and fantastical creatures that Oppel manages to make sense! Each adventure takes place in a different setting, each with evil villains and even terrorist plots (the third and final book), but what’s more amazing, are the issues with politics and power structures that Oppel raises seamlessly through these scanarios.

I actually get this sense of breathlessness whenever I delve into this series, which sounds dramatic I know, but the adventure and new technological and biological discoveries are thrilling and truly make you want to take a dimension gun (I know they don’t exist, but a girl’s gotta dream) (on that note, which world would you want to live in and why?) and shoot yourself.

Series order:

Airborn

Skybreaker

Starclimber

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Rating: 7/10

Age: 12+

Artemesia Fitz-Willoghby Weatherhouse (Art), yes that’s her name, is the brilliant and defiant protagonist in this crazy pirate adventure. Now, I revisited this book after probably (maybe?), 7 years. The very idea of this book is hilarious and charming.

Art loses her Mother (and her memory) at a young age and is sent to live with her rich father, who sends her to finishing school in hopes of putting her straight. However, after 6 years at the academy, she hits her head and regains her memory. This story takes place in the year Seventeen-Twelvety (early 1800’s in our world), so if you’re not into historical fiction, then this book is not for you. But if you are into badass teenage heroines who charm the pants off of everybody (then steals them), this book is. 😉

In these memories, she catches glimpses of her mother’s daring adventures at sea, the most feared pirate in England. She immediately leaves, and in a strange series of events (declaring herself to be Art Blastside), steals from an aspiring singer, makes him a highwayman, and manages to band together her Mother’s old crew and convince them all to steal the ship they are currently ‘working’ on.

Now, there’s a catch to all this: those memories are true, however they didn’t take place on the high seas but ON A STAGE, and her mother wasn’t a pirate, in fact, neither of them are. They are all ACTORS!

Still, Art isn’t swayed, and continues down the path with her misfit bunch of actors who have suddenly become the most ‘fearsome’ and ‘troublesome’ pirates on the high seas! *They also have a mysterious map which may or may not yield true treasure!

Go hunting for gold, with Art, and discover a new world, that is slightly distorted from ours, and laugh out loud at the pure Ludacrisy in so many scenes!

This book is a trilogy, and the first one does start out a bit dry almost, but if you can read the first book, make sure to get through the second and third, which are even more detailed and fantastical!

I did give it a 7, which is still a high score respectively, however it is a bit dry and shallow, and there is this strange tone the Author takes on whilst writing. However, it could just be that it doesn’t suit my style.

Series Order

Piratica

Piratica II Return to Parrot Island

Piratica III The Family Sea

Let me know below what you think of this book, if you’ve read it, and if you agree with my rating!

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Reading With Raithatha

Escape with me.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Piratica by Tanith Lee