Airborn

I was going to try to do a joint review of the Airborn series with Evan, but I think it's been too long since we read it, because our discussion was kind of a flop.

Me: So, what do you remember about why we liked the first book?

E: There's no one fact about it that I can really think of that was very unique from any other book I've read.

Translation: "I loved it so much I couldn't wait to rush through the whole series! But that was months ago and right now I want to think about The City of Ember, and also the latest Ferrari model."

Me: What I remember was the characters and the way they interacted with each other. Like, Matt wanted to be obedient to the captain because he respected him, but Kate kept leading him off on her little expeditions. She wanted to find those flying cat creatures, remember?

E: No, that was the second book, when they went to the island.

Me: No, the second book was the one where they went up to the really high altitude, the first one was when they went to the island and got captured by pirates. Remember?

E: Wasn't that the third book? No, wait--third was the space one. Starclimber.

Lightning fast plot summaries of the entire series ensues. Faster than the speed of typing. We stop the discussion to look up the name of the flying cat creatures: Cloud Cats. The internet sucks us in and we get distracted for a while. Also we're hungry for breakfast, so we have to fix food.

The flying cat creatures were very cool, by the way.

Me: You really loved the whole airship setting. What did you like about that?

E: I liked the idea of airships being the main mode of transportation because....hmmm.  I don't know. Ben's the one that's good at talking about stuff like this. Can I go now?

Translation: "Airships are awesome. Also, this is a great series and people should read it, and that's all they need to know, really, isn't it?"

Yeah, that's pretty much all we've got for you. Maybe we'll do better with Ship Breaker (our current read) or The City of Ember (which we just finished). Time will tell.

By Alison Jakel