Book Review: Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

WOW! I really enjoyed this book. I mean really enjoyed this book. From what I know this is a prequel so to speak to his Mortal Engines series. I have never read anything by Mr. Reeve before and actually never even heard of him which really surprised me considering how much I read and try to stay on top of the YA book world. I read this book for two reasons: 1. It was due back at the library soon and 2. I wanted to read a book for my Twitter book club that was something new and fresh.

To gain a sense of my thoughts while reading go ahead and check out my Twitter Book Club page to see my thoughts. Basically, this is a book about Fever Crumb. Fever is a girl with two different color eyes and is trying to find out who she is and where she is from as her adventure begins to unfold. She has grown up with Dr. Crumb and the Order of Engineers, which are a group of men who work on a variety of projects and are constantly tinkering with various objects. There is also a war brewing. In many ways this is a steampunk novel with the gadgets and different points of view. Some think Fever is a Scriven which is a new breed of humans who refer to themselves as Home Superior. Humans don't like Scriven due to a long history of not getting along and mistreatment.

The setting of the story is in the future. The apocalypse has already occurred and therefore they try to use the remains of the electronic devices and other gadgets that have survived. Despite being in the future and having some very cool machines and so forth it is still relatively primitive in the technology field.

I thought the novel was quite clever. I enjoyed the play on words with names, the subtle humor, and how once again we have a strong character trying hard to find her identity. The ending is left open, but I am sure that I read the other books in the Mortal Engine series it would all make sense as those books pick up where this leaves off. I give this book two thumbs up. I really enjoyed the storyline and now just need to track down the other novels in the series which I hear are even better than this book.