Can a YA series for once have a first book that can at least be read on its own and not leave things so INCREDIBLY OPEN-ENDED so that I have to read the rest? I'm so annoyed right now, I'm not going to.

Deryn was a little annoying. She didn't seem to have any real character development, and only grew more and more awesome as the book went on -- which, in most cases, would be great, but Westerfeld has fallen into the heroine trap that most YA authors do; he wanted to make a girl so awesome, she hopped the line into Mary Sue land. I'm sure some would disagree with me, but that's how I saw it. Also, I got really tired of hearing her quirky phrases. One more "blister!" and I was going to toss the book out my window. (Except not really, it's a library book.) Alek, on the other hand, had a great, visible character development story line, and I liked him much better.

Overall, this was a fun read, and while I'm not a big fan of steampunk, I enjoyed the alternate history world building.