Book Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Let me start by saying that we intended for this to be a joint review. Autumn and I started reading Boneshaker together but she dropped out five chapters in. I don't blame her. It had such promise - steampunk and zombies!

Boneshaker takes up 16 years after a disaster has left the city of Seattle quarantined. Survivors live outside the remnants of the city scraping by, boiling down the water multiple times to rid it of the Blight that turned most of Seattle into rotters (zombies). The story is told from two perspectives, that of Briar (whose former husband brought about the disaster) and her son, Zeke. Of course, Zeke has questions about who his father was and what he really did but his mother has never answered him. To add fuel to this fire, Briar's father was a lawman who saved some criminals from lock up when the rotters took over the city. The family has many secrets as do all families at the root of great tragedy.

Zeke slips into the city through access tunnels but an earthquake renders the tunnel inaccessible to Briar who ends up boarding an airship (so cool!) captained by one of the men her father had saved from lock up (how convenient, right?). It quickly becomes apparent that the book is going to revolve around Zeke (pursuing his fool's errand to exonerate his father) and Briar's attempts to stay alive and reunite. Toss in a mad scientist hoping to take up the mantle of Zeke's father while running the remnants of downtown Seattle, an underground crew of Chinamen and random others trying to survive in the Blight infested city and scores of rotters who can climb (what?!) and you have all the components of a brilliant adventure. Or not.

The book starts out SLOW, so slow that Autumn just could not get hooked. I powered through and found a few parts interesting but in the end it just fell flat. There are zombie hoards that keep people running at times but they don't show up until half way through the book and other than one scene with Briar on the side of a building, their activity was rather underwhelming. Further, I was left with more questions than answer and while Ms. Priest did not tie everything up in a nice neat bow (a pet peeve of mine), I felt there could have been some more puzzle pieces put in place.

I would give this book three out of five top hats (like our new rating system???).