Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel

I know, I know, I haven't reviewed Jane Eyre yet, and I haven't finished Poisonwood Bible or Dandelion Wine or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or Queen of Attolia, which I started re-reading the other night. This is more books than I usually do at once, I'll admit. But its not quite so bad as that time in Jr. High when I was re-reading The Blue Sword, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Lost Scrolls at the same time. For those who aren't familiar with all three of these books, all of them have a main character named Harry. This time there are more books, but at least I can keep the names and characters straight in my head.

But, on to my review.


Airborn
Kenneth Oppel
(Book On CD, recorded by Full Cast Audio)
Reviewed By Sarah
Start Date: May 4, 2009
Finish Date: May 5, 2009
Star Rating: Seven Stars *******
"Movie Rating": I'd say PG-13. Much of the book seems pretty friendly, until you run into the pirates who have guns and aren't afraid to use them, among other things. And I there are like three swear words.

So I'm already done with this one when I started five other books (all of which I intend to finish!) before this one. Why? Well, as you can see above, this was a book on CD. Therefore, I could listen to it during work, etc., and therefore do two things at once. Actually, I only listened to about half of it at work. The other half I was at the apartment, making Orange Rolls (which turned out alright, but I'm blaming the oven for making them slightly more than golden brown) cleaning, and drawing whimseys. I would have finished sooner, except that the LRC in the library has this stupid rule of only allowing you to have three things checked out at once. That means that I could only have three of the ten CDs that the book was recorded on at a time, which was incredibly inconvenient and required four trips to the library in all. It may be more of a walk, but I really need a Provo Library card--I'm sure they'd let me have the whole book on CD at once.

So anyway, the book.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: It seems like a popular thing for book reviewers do is say what authors/series a certain book is a mix of. In that vein, I'd say this was Horatio Hornblower (or Patrick O'Brien, if thats where you tend) and Robinson Crusoe thrown together on the Hindenburg (except it doesn't blow up, fortunately. It just smells like mangoes instead.) And maybe Darwin could tag along as well.

If you like pirates, uncharted islands, undocumented creatures, orders delivered with an "If you please, Mr. Cruse", and a little bit of romance thrown into the mix, this would be a good book to pick up.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE. PLEASE DON"T READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE a) already read the book or b) don't intend to ever read the book or c)want to completely spoil your reading experience.

It was different, listening to the story instead of reading it. When I heard it, I thought Matt's last name was "Cruise" or "Crews" or some such--but no, on the blurb on the back its spelled "Cruse". A nice name choice, I think. The homophones/homonyms/whatever-you-call-ems are quite fitting.

I did like Matt as a main character, though oddly I sometimes found myself wishing that he was more clever. This is what I get for having read The Sherwood Ring and The Queen of Attolia so recently--Peaceable and Eugenides can sure keep me entertained. His lack of cleverness isn't any great fault or anything--I guess I just find myself wishing that every book/main character was clever.

While I liked Matt, I really didn't like Kate, even though I was supposed to. At least, I think I was supposed to--Matt really likes her, and she is the romantic interest for the narrator, so she should at least be desirable, right? But I found her rather annoying--stubborn, willful, spoiled, used to getting her own way and not being punished for doing anything in order to get what she wants. Shes not completely irredeemable, mind, but incredibly annoying. Maybe she's not as bad in the two later books? I hope so, but I also doubt it--the ending of this one didn't seem to suggest to me she was learning any kind of humility. *sigh*

While the voice actors were pretty good, I did find myself rethinking many of the lines in my head and "correcting" their inflection. When I read, I hear the words in my head like they're being spoken to me, inflection and all, and it always sounds better in my head than when someone else does it.

It was also kind of different to not have my whole mind on the story. When you read a book, then doing nothing else is fine. When you listen to it, you feel completely lazy and useless if you're not also doing something else. Because my mind was divided I don't think I took in the book as well as I could have (I can't remember the pirate Captains name, for example--it was a kind of compound word, and it had an S in it, I think--but he got what was coming to him, so his name doesn't really matter, right?) but I took it in well enough I think.

Theres more to say, but its quarter to midnight. Maybe I'll add more later.