Hey all the peoples! I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted, but I’ve been having computer issues for the past month or so and I have a new computer now (after a lot of rigamarole and trips to Best Buy) so I should be back to posting two or three times a week. Sorry about the long absence! Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.53 Nicolette’s awful stepsisters call her “Mechanica” to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother’s knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have turned her into a servant in her own home. But on her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette discovers a secret workshop in the cellar and begins to dare to imagine a new life for herself. Could the mysterious books and tools hidden there—and the mechanical menagerie, led by a tiny metal horse named Jules—be the key to escaping her dreary existence? With a technological exposition and royal ball on the horizon, the timing might just be perfect for Nicolette to earn her freedom at last. (goodreads.com) When I first saw this book I was filled with indignation. Was this not just a Cinder wannabe? Was it not a complete knock off? Turns out, it was not. I had expected this book to mimic Marissa Meyer’s Cinder in that they were both about mechanic Cinderella’s, but, as it turns out, this book is quite different from my beloved Lunar Chronicles. Sure, some of the concepts and plot points were the same, but there are only so many places you can go with fairytale adaptations. In addition to being unique, this book was also quite good. The setting is in a made up world of steampunkiness and magic. I’m kind of new to the steampunk genre, but I think this book made it very approachable and not so peculiar that my poor punkless mind couldn’t understand. I’m not overly fond of the way their world was explained, as the second chapter of the book was pretty much all exposition, but it still did a fairly decent job of not suffocating me with information. The stepsisters, or “Steps”, were pretty much like every set of evil sisters ever since the beginning of the Cinderella story. They were mean without reason, petty, and totally okay with treating their stepsister like a servant. The stepmother was no better. Basically, this trio was a brainless bunch without any original character traits. Oddly enough, we do see a few moments of sympathy for the stepmother, which don’t really result in anything and really only serve to show that Nicolette is a compassionate person. Nicolette herself is the main reason Mechanica is different from Cinder. While Linh Cinder is a spunky, majorly sarcastic character, Nicolette Lampton is quiet, somewhat shy, and spends most of her time in her basement. One thing that is the same about them is that they both take control of their less than ideal situations and work on getting out of those situations. Caro is a fun character who is always bursting with excitement and happiness. She has a few interesting insights on life, though I’m not sure I agree with all of them, and she always seems to ready to help. Fin is strange. His character seems to jump around a lot and he seems like he’s just thrown into the story at some points without any reason. This book seems to be attempting to make a statement about how wrong racism is, but it doesn’t quite get there. The setting gets everything ready for a thoughtful story about how treating someone as less than you because they are different isn’t right, but the plot gets in the way of this statement. However, I’ve recently discovered that there is to be a sequel to this book, and perhaps they will get around to it then. So, no, it wasn’t a perfect book, probably not worthy of the four stars I gave it, but I really enjoyed the writing. Something you should probably know about me is that I usually rate a book by how much I enjoyed it, not by how many things were wrong with it or not completely perfect. I liked reading this book, and it was easy to get into so I gave it a higher rating. If you read this book you might not like it, but that’s okay. It’s not flawless, but I liked it. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below on your thoughts about this book or you can leave me a suggestion on what you want me to review next. Okie dokie artichokies, I’m off to the inventor’s exposition (I just realized that the last book I reviewed was a Cinderella retelling and that I can’t use the “oh no it’s midnight” sign off again). Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455099-mechanica?ac=1&from_search=true
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