Boneshaker

The Boneshaker by Cherie Priest was like no other book that I had ever read. This was mostly due to the fact I am not a well-read man. I had read a partial summary on this book, and thought it sounded interesting, so I brought it to school for the review. However I did not know that it was part of a trilogy, and was part of the steampunk genre.

The book caught my attention by, first of all, having its locus in Washington, a state that I have been to numerous times. Secondly, it had the profoundly interesting topic of zombies, making it seem much more interesting than I later realized. The book ended up being about a mother who searches for her son in a quarantined part of Seattle, with a few situations with zombies. The real plot of this book was miraculously boring, but the setting of the story was the most interested part of the story.

The story begins with a short backstory, of the main characters father being an inventor, and somehow released zombifying gas into the city. The story kicks off where an interviewer is trying to get the details on what happened, and he is shooed out of Blue’s house. Blue is the main character, along with her son, Zeke, being another main character. The author has two characters by having each chapter be in their perspective, rather than having a combination of the two. I disliked this method of writing due to the fact it would have a cliff hanger in one of their stories, and begin again in a random spot along the other’s journey. By the time I would reach the continuation of the chapter, I would have to go back and reread the previous chapter, to get caught up again.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who would want a smooth running novel. The jumpiness that it created was almost too bothersome to finish, but it did have a great portrayal of zombies. If there is a reader who likes both zombies and steampunk, I would recommend looking into this book, but be warned that it is not a great book to pick up if the reader doesn’t have a large span of time to read.