Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Infernal Devices
Fiction Series
For ages 12 and up
Scholastic Press, 2012 ISBN: 978-0545222136
Wren is fed up with her life in Anchorage-in-Vineland. She loves her father Tom of course, but she and her mother Hester clash all the time. Her mother simply does not seem to understand what it is like to be a pretty teenage girl who likes boys and clothes. This is not surprising really because Hester had a very hard life, and she certainly never had the luxury of being able to be a carefree young girl. Wren wishes she could see the world beyond, the world where great cities move across the land and where airships floated across the skies.
Quite suddenly and unexpectedly Wren gets her wish. Wren is approached by a trio of lost boys who ask her to steal the Tin Book from the library in Anchorage. This she does once she gets them to agree to take her away with them. Then everything goes wrong and Wren ends up getting first kidnapped by one of the Lost Boys, and then enslaved by the powerful Shkin consortium on the floating city of Brighton.
When they discover that Wren has been stolen from them, Hester and Tom waste no time and soon they are chasing after her, determined to rescue their daughter. They quickly discover that the world has changed a great deal while they have been living in isolated peace in Anchorage. A war is being waged between those who hate the great mobile cities, and those who seek to protect the. Soon Tom, Hester, and Wren are caught up in this battle fighting for their lives.
This is the third book in the Mortal Engines series and it certainly maintains the excitement and surprises that delighted readers of the previous two volumes. Once again individuals are caught up in the wake of a great cause, tossed about by the whims, ambitions, and dreams of others. Once again they have to fight for survival and watch as some of their number fall by the wayside. Sometimes disturbing, this is a tale that will not let the reader go until the last shocking page is read.
