“Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air or even a bit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable never-ending struggle.”
-Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth
- Release Date: October 5th 2010
- Genre: Fantasy/ Alternate History
- Publisher: Simon Pulse
- Pages: 485
Synopsis: The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers. Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan’s peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.
The second book in the Leviathan series picks up where Leviathan left off. Together our protagonists; the exiled Austrain Prince Alek and the Scottish midshipman Deryn Sharp masquerading as a boy, land in Istanbul. This melting pot city steeped in tradition is about to get rocked at its center.
Here the two get wrapped up in secret military missions, a revolution and a conspiracy. This novel focuses on the growth of the friendship between Alek and Dylan/Deryn. Deryn now has to deal with figuring out how much longer she can lie to Alek and how her lies are impacting their friendship.
In the foreground however, The Great War plunges on. Battles are fought, lives are lost and the world is going (as Deryn would say) Pear-shaped. As always Westefeld is a master of language and world building. He works the intricacies of World War I into the story while still keeping it easy to follow.
Overall a great continuation for the series. A jarring action packed novel, you come for the plot but ultimately stay for the characters.
1/2 of the blogging duo at Books and Sensibility, I have been blogging about and reviewing books since 2011. I read any and every genre, here on the blog I mostly review Fantasy, Adult Fiction, and Young Adult with a focus on audiobooks.