Author: Nikki McCormack
Publisher: Entangled
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This steam-punk novel drew me in immediately, making me want to read it and keep reading it until it was finished. I wish I knew the secret formula for doing that, but while I can tell you if a novel brings me aboard or turns me off in the first few pages, I can't tell you why it does. Maybe I should spend some time trying to analyze why this is? Could be useful down the road!
However, it wasn't all plain sailing. There were some real issues I had which I shall relate, but looking at this novel overall, and considering how involved it did make me feel overall, I favor it. It was engrossing, it had plenty of action, an interesting female lead, and it moved along at a good clip.
Be warned, however, that it's set in Britain with a lot of Brit slang (which the author does quite well), and there's no glossary, so you might want to refer to my slang guide elsewhere on my blog if you're not up to speed! If the word you've looking for isn't in there yet, let me know and I'll add it. Keep in mind that I haven't lived in Britain for some time, so I'm a bit rusty myself! Seriously, I am.
The novel is about the misadventures of Maeko, an English girl with a Japanese mom, who took off for the street life when she overheard her mother's plans to put her into an orphanage. So serious kudos to the author there for a non-WASP/Aryan main character. I loved that!
Maeko eventually took-up with fellow street urchin Chaff, carrying out jobs for him in a very comfortable, but platonic, working relationship. The novel opens with her being apprehended - after robbing a store - by the 'Lits' (the Literati) who are the police in this world. There's no explanation offered as to exactly who they are or why they have this title, which was dissatisfying. This arrest occurs shortly after she's discovered a cat which has a clockwork leg in place of one of its natural limbs. The plot thickens!
The first real problem I had was with the inevitable YA love triangle, which is always a no-no for me. First, there's Asher. Ash has gorgeous eyes. We know this because we're pummeled brutally with this datum on numerous occasions. Every dozen pages or so we're reminded of how green they are, how pale they are, how beautiful they are, etc., et-boring-cetera. It's nauseating. I get it already! He has pretty, pale, green eyes. Uncle! There I said it!
The truth is that Ash is a sullen jerk who inexplicably uses the form of address "Ms" when speaking to a woman. Major anachronism! Ms, believe it or not, was coined in the 17th century, but it fell out of use until last century, so it's highly unlikely anyone would have used it in Victorian times. Not that I was there. Honest. I wasn't. No, really!
The second candidate was Chaff, who has known Maeko since she was eight years old and failed to make any advances upon her. Procrastinate much, Chaff? I guess he always thought he owned her and didn't need to bother? This makes him a jerk too, in my book. Or rather, in Nikki McCormack's book! It doesn't help that he insists on calling her 'pigeon' which frankly made me want to barf every time I heard it. The Brits call girls 'birds', but I've never heard 'pigeon' used to describe anyone. OTOH, I've never lived in Victorian times, either. Seriously, I haven't....
Chaff has an irritating habit of pronouncing her name as Mayko, which makes zero sense unless he can read, and has seen it written, which is highly unlikely, unless Maeko actually wrote it down for him. It's never suggested that she has, and why would she? This means that Chaff can only have heard the name from Maeko actually saying it, so his only mistake could be from mis-hearing (willfully or otherwise), and there's no way to get May-Ko from hearing her say Ma-ay-ko! That didn't work for me.
My blog is just as much about writing as it is about reading, so I have to highlight this particular observation as a writing problem. It's caused by a writer focusing far too much on the word on the page rather than the word in the real world. It's something I don't doubt that we all do, and of which we all need to be aware. We're putting down the story on the page, but it's supposed to be a story taking place in a real world, about real characters who live and move, and breathe in 3D, not on a flat page or screen, and who have their senses: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and touch all in play all the time. It's a lurking pitfall of which we should all be aware.
The first real dip this took for me was in chapter 11 starting on page 157, when Chaff and Ash fought. At this point both these guys proved themselves to be willing to go beyond being a mere jerk, and roll completely off mission. This was understandable for Chaff since he wasn't invested in it to begin with, but he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. Fighting in public isn't achieving that aim, which means he's an idiot and acting out of character to boot. It was even more inexcusable for Ash, who had a lot riding on this plan they were supposed to be executing.
But such boys do fight, so the problem here wasn't so much that as it was the question of how Maeko could even countenance either of these boys at this point. Her investment in this operation was even more questionable, because I didn't buy her getting on board with helping Ash. Given how he had treated her, and what we'd been told of her family history and her attitude towards her mum, it felt completely wrong to me to have her feeling all gushy about fixing Ash's family problems. It didn't work.
I'm not saying she would never do it, just that I personally felt I hadn't been given anywhere near sufficient justification for her throwing her lot in with him when there wasn't anything in it for her. I didn't buy the promised cash reward, since she had no real justification for aiming for it, given her attitude towards her mum, and she had no reason to trust that Ash would give it to her anyway, even had he the cash to give.
This fight and her acceptance of it really goes back to the sunk cost fallacy. She had an investment in both of them to one extent or another, which was no doubt hard for her to give up on. But this remains as one more example of a really strong character being subjugated to a boy or a man for no reason other than that this is what authors think they're compelled to do with their YA girls. I wish they would think more outside the book.Fortunately, Maeko has a lot more going for her than just this, so this didn't kill the story for me, but this triangle felt like such a knee-jerk reaction: Oh, it's YA? Then we simply have to have a love-triangle with two polar-opposite guys who the main female protag inexplicably finds equally attractive. Oh, and at least one of the guys has to insist that he owns her - however indirect or subtle it may be expressed, and she cannot find anything wrong with this attitude! Frankly, it makes me puke. Who made a law saying that the girl has to have a guy, let alone two? Is she so weak a character that she can't carry the novel on her own?
One final brace of bitches: the plethora of coincidences in this novel in a place the size of London, with the same characters conveniently showing up to advance or thwart the main character's plans was a bit much! Yeah, I know she was wandering around in circles like a headless chicken, but really? Once in a while a coincidence or two is fine, but for them to be a routine part of the novel was way stretching credibility. And while I can accept a cyborg clockwork cat in a steam-punk novel, I found it hard to swallow that the cat was so human in its behavior. It wasn't even called Lassie.... That aside, I have to repeat that the story was inventive and compelling, and the characters interesting for the most part.
Soooo, all kibitzing aside I'm going to uprate this because it had so much going for it, it was a cool idea, and the last thing I want to do is dissuade a new and talented writer from spreading her wings! So I'm going to recommend this one. Way to go, Entangled! Another winner, and thanks for a chance to review it.
