Storyline: 2/5 
 Characters: 1/5 
 Writing Style: 2/5 
 World: 2/5 
 My review of this work is definitely influenced by preconceptions. From the massively geared contraption depicted on the cover and the Seattle Times' "Cherie Priest is the high priestess of steampunk" endorsement, one could easily be lured into thinking this is a story about steam-powered technology come before its time and its staking a different trajectory through history. Oh how far I was misled. 
 This is a civil-war era travel adventure. There are a few steampunk embellishments - zephyrs and goggles - but the technological anachronism here is the introduction of the combustion engine in an earlier time period. This, too, is merely adornment as the book is not about the impact such technology has on the timeline. If the gasoline contraptions weren't present, it would have altered the story very little. The plotline is fairly simple: someone out east needs to get out west, and a catalog of the adventures en route. Priest is fairly good at what she does - doles out mini dramas spaced across each chapter to keep the story suspenseful and emotional. There is very little memorable here, however. There's no great point, no great story, no analysis, criticism, insight, or theory. It is a generic story with a few genre-specific trimmings for novelty. If Priest is the high-priestess of steampunk then the genre is in a poor state indeed. 
 I struggled in deciding whether this was a 1-star or a 2-star book. Thinking back, most of my 1-star designations were because the author did something exceedingly objectionable - the pacing was simply awful, the plot holes made everything else outlandish, the characters contradicted their own characterization - something unforgivably distracting to an already poorly-written book. Priest had no such striking flaws. Don't get me wrong, I do think there was much to dislike: the drama was forced, the main character was superhuman, and it was woefully lacking in originality. Most of it, however, could be pleasantly overlooked. To its credit, the vocabulary, sentence structure, and ideas are simplistic; and this was a breeze to read. Aside from the pervasive vulgar language, I would recommend this to late elementary school or middle school children. I think that is the most appropriate audience.