Kenneth Oppel, Airborn

I've been meaning to read Kenneth Oppel's novels for a very, very long time: he graduated from the same high school I did, a few years before me, although while we were there at the same time, I don't think we ever interacted.

Now that I've gotten through Airborn, which initially I bought thinking that I could persuade my daughter to read it with me, and so solidify my move away from repeated rereads of the first four Harry Potter novels, I'm cranky that it has taken me this long. This was a seamlessly imagined piece of YA airship fiction (that I see Goodreads ranks first among novels featuring airships, just above Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, which I also really enjoyed), and I've already bought the sequel for some fun summer reading. It looks like I'll be reading them alone, but that's her loss!

Matt Cruse is a young cabin boy flying across the Pacific (called here the Pacificus) in a state-of-the-art airship called the Aurora, which he joined three years previously after the death of his father, who had served on the same ship. After a prologue that sees the recovery of a damaged, drifting balloon, the novel follows the adventures of young Matt and the wealthy young Kate de Vries as they try to figure out the backstory of the rescued balloon, to battle pirates, to do undercover scientific research on their own, and above all to establish places for themselves in a world whose codes are constructed specifically to hold them down (a young man without money, and a woman at all). There's a sequel, and a sequel to the sequel, so the in-book suspense is limited by that reality, but it's absolutely a ripping yarn that I thought was well worth my time.

What, you'd rather keep scrolling on your phone?

Fight the billionaires, and hang the algorithms. Read a damn book, and for some of you, this would be a good one to choose!