Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel

The best thing about my book is...

Well, there are two things. 

• The two main characters, Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries, have a great relationship. It's filled with sarcastic remarks and jokes. As you're reading, you smile at almost every conversation. I think it's because Kate reads quite a bit, so she knows a lot. She wants to be a biologist, but her parents don't approve. After the airship crashes on an island in the Pacific, she's thrilled she'll get to see all the wildlife, and of course there aren't any dangerous animals on this little island in the Oceanic, Matt, because I've read it in a book. This leads to her being wrong a lot and Matt being caustically sarcastic. Their relationship, in my opinion, makes the book because while the setting and the plot are interesting by themselves, the characters make you want to keep reading if only to hear them speak.

"There's no snakes here, by the way," I told her. "I'm completely sure of it." -Matt, after being attacked by a red jumping snake. 

• This one is a smaller detail, but in my mind it's just as important. Kate and Matt, while on the island, discover a new species of animal that never lands on the earth nor swims in the seas. It looks like a mixture of a panther and a bat. You know when you read a book and a mystical creature is introduced, and it's described as majestic and intelligent and truly innocent, and blah blah blah mankind is a lesser creature in its presence... Well, there is some of that in the book, but pretty soon you realize that while the creature is majestic and intelligent it's also incredibly vicious. I appreciate the originality in creating a new animal. 

"We saw her teeth, and suddenly she was no longer a sleek, shy cat...We'd made a terrible mistake." -Matt, after they lured the cloud cat to them so they could get a picture.