I have rather mixed feelings about Boneshaker. On one hand, even though alternate histories/parallel worlds are nothing new, I quite enjoyed the steampunk aesthetic and the world building. It was a lot darker than I had imagined, but I thought Priest did a fantastic job with the history of the city and building up to the actual beginning of the plotline. The zombie concept was well integrated into both stories. On the other hand, the main characters were sort of detached for me, and I never really cared about what happened to them. Zeke was incredibly annoying and reminded me of a much less capable and slightly more whiny Marcus. The side characters were actually more interesting and likeable characters (e.g., Lucy, Cly, Jeremiah, Angeline).I enjoyed Dreadnought more than Boneshaker, I think because the world building was equally good, but Mercy, although still a trope, was a much more likeable protagonist.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the steampunk genre, but I probably won't seek out more steampunk books to read.
Really? I liked Zeke more than Marcus. Like, I never wanted to waterboard Zeke. (I'm obviously never living that down, so I'm going to embrace it.) Zeke was kinda dumb, but I felt like he complained less than Marcus, or at least didn't talk down to me as much. Writing teenagers is just hard, I guess.
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