Review: Fever Crumb

Title: Fever Crumb
Author: Philip Reeve
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 325
Rating: 3.5 stars
From the book jacket: 
There is a great secret lurking in Fever's past. A secret only Fever can uncover.

Fever Crumb has been adopted and raised by Dr. Crumb, a member of the Order of Engineers, where she serves as an apprentice. At a time when women are not seen as reasonable creatures, Fever is an anomaly, the only girl to serve in the Order. Soon, though, she must say good-bye to Dr. Crumb to assist archaeologist Kit Solent with a top secret project. The assignment involves a mysterious room that once belonged to Auric Godshawk, the last of the Scriven overlords, and Fever must help unlock it. The Scriven, not human, ruled the city some years ago but were hunted down and killed in a victorious uprising by the people.

As Fever's work begins, she is plagued by memories that are not her own, and Kit seems to have a particular interest in finding out what they are. All Fever knows is what she's been told: She is an orphan. But whose memories does she hold? And why are there people chasing her, intent on eliminating her? Is Fever the key to unlocking the terrible secret of the past?

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Fever Crumb came highly recommended by one of my best friends, and although I didn't love it, I did enjoy it and I can definitely see why she liked it. The characters are fun and likable (or, in the villains' cases, distinctly unlikable), the story-world is very well-developed, the story is intriguing, and it's funny. One thing I particularly liked: in this new post-apocalyptic world, they use a lot of our words to mean different things, and "blog" is a swearword! Also, someone has discovered Harry Potter and decided that he is an "old world prophet." I was so amused.

At the start of the story, Fever is the only female apprentice to the Order of Engineers, and she's been recruited by an archaeologist to help him with a very secret project. Engineers are trained to always be rational and ignore all emotions, so living with Kit and his children is appalling to Fever: they're the most unreasonable people she's ever met. But she's becoming unreasonable too, it seems, because she keeps remembering things that she's never seen before.

Her strange memories aren't the only thing strange about her. Fever's eyes are two different colors, and those that remember the reign of the Scriven are convinced that she is a Scriven, returning to destroy them. The only logical solution is to destroy her first.

There were a lot of times in this book where I wanted a better idea of what Fever was thinking and trying not to feel - I wanted to see more character development and I felt like the story was kind of predictable in places. But that aside, Fever Crumb was a fun futuristic story with an interesting take on post-apocalyptic England and characters that are endearing and enjoyable. I'm not recommending it with all the love in my heart, but I do think it's a worthwhile read.

Links:
Philip Reeve's website/blog