Cogheart

Oh, dear... this will be hard. I'm on the second scene and I hate everything about this already.

“Some secrets change the world in a heartbeat...

Lily's father is missing and now silver-eyed men stalk her through the shadows. With her friends—Robert, the clockmaker's son, and Malkin, her mechanical fox — Lily is plunged into a murky and menacing world.
Murder, mayhem and mystery meet in this gripping Victorian adventure.”

“A stunning adventure of danger and daring”.
The cover promises me a red-haired girl and a boy, and a clockwork fox, and airships, and who is that woman in the locker, a mystery, perhaps? Where is home? They apparently need to run against time. What is this secret? “silver-eyed men”, ooh, spooky!
And her father is missing... Hmm..

The book opens with an airship battle. The bad guys capture Lily's father, but not before he has managed to send the clockwork fox with a message to his daughter.

The next scene presents the daughter. She is apparently in some sort of finishing school, or boarding school, or something.
They have a deportment class, and the teacher is described as “middle-aged”, having flat feet, and called Kraken. As her name is McKracken.
So inventive.

Do you want to know what is inventive? 1988 Lucasfilm Games came out with “Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders”. The Japanese version of the game was released in 1990 as “Zakkumakkurakken” :-D The game itself wasn't that good (it wasn't bad either), but the story was interesting.
“The game was originally meant to be more serious, resembling the Indiana Jones series, but Ron Gilbert persuaded David Fox to increase the humorous aspects of the game. The game was consequently heavily inspired by many popular theories about aliens, ancient astronauts, and mysterious civilizations. The many places visited in the game are common hotspots for these ideas, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, Lima, Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Face on Mars. The Skolarians are based on the Greys alien, while the Caponians are primarily based on the Men in Black, with their Cadillac-shaped spaceship and Elvis-themed leader “The King”. The Caponians also have heads shaped like Easter Island's Moai statues.”

But - she reads during the class. When you balance a book on your head, your posture is perfect. As can be seen with the women all over the world who still carry loads on their heads.
When you carry a book on your head, your head is up and you will be looking straight forward.
If you are reading a book, you will need to hold it in front of you.
She was hiding the pennydreadful inside a school book.
And holding a pen in her other hand prepared to make notes in the book.

Just think about that a little...


“The Kraken was somewhat obsessed with posture. As for Lily, she barely gave it a second thought. In her opinion it was better to read books than balance them. That's what they were designed for, after all. And if you wanted to wear something on your head there was a perfectly good item designed for that too: it was called a hat.”

Sorry, Peter, but that isn't clever nor funny. It just tells us that Lily believes to be smarter than everyone else, especially her teachers, while she doesn't understand the purpose of the exercises. That the author himself doesn't understand the purpose of the exercises he describes, doesn't make Lily appear any smarter.

“the gaggle of girls”
A gaggle is a noisy, unorderly group of people. And the collective noun for geese. Now, the girls are very quiet and orderly, so he's comparing girls to geese. That was sexist already 100 years ago.

but...

Miss Lucretia has a prim nose.
Miss Gemma had precarious books.
I think Peter doesn't quite understand the meaning of words.

Miss Alice has “doughnut plait”, a “monstrous hair-buncle”. What is “doughnut plait”?

“Lily had long ago noticed the other girls never read in posture class. It seemed thinking and walking simultaneously was too difficult for them.”
I hate her. Pompous better-than-thou ass.

“And what use was deportment to one dead? No use. No use whatsoever.”
What use was your pennydreadful savvy to one dead? No use whatsoever. Get down from your high horses, you bitch.

““Stop,” the Kraken yelled and one by one the girls stopped in a neat line behind her. All except Lily who, having failed to notice her untied shoelaces, tripped, stepped on Gemma's foot, and fell.”

No. She was so up to her conceited daydreams that she failed to pay attention to her environment and the most important detail, the Kraken.

“Why don't you pay attention, you galumphing lump?” the Kraken shouted. “What've you got to say for yourself?”

Lily gazed up from the sea of fallen books. Was the woman talking to her?”

Is she somehow intellectually challenged? Or just incredibly slow?

The Kraken huffed. “I said: WHAT-HAVE-YOU-GOT-TO-SAY-FOR-YOURSELF? Oh, never mind. You've been reading. You're not allowed to read in my class—”

“I thought—”

I would very much like to know what she thought. “It's ok for me to disobey rules, because I'm special”? “I can do what I'm expected to do and read, too”? Didn't she just prove that she can't?

Then The Kraken turned a most putrid shade of puce - Perhaps it was her tight corsets that made her face flush so?

Tight corsets don't make faces flush. You should try wearing a corset before you start writing about them.

So, flatfooted, middle-aged, puce. I wonder what more he'll pile on her to make her appear nasty.
“sweaty armpits”
Bulging eyes.

““Why is it you think you can ignore my lessons in favour of these tall tales?”
Quite reasonable question.
What is Lily's answer? ““Papa believes one should read a lot wider than deportment manuals if one plans to get an exceptional education.”
If you educate yourself with pulp fiction, you are indeed going to get an exceptional education. As odd, unique, unusual, strange - like no-one else in the world will have that kind of education. BECAUSE IT'S RUBBISH! It's balderdash and bunkum. And it doesn't teach piracy and air combat. As if that was anything worth to study. What the heck would you do in the dark alley with a villain with your knowledge of pulp fiction piracy and air combat?

Mrs McKracken behaves quite civilly and speaks to this obstinate little a-hole as to an ordinary human being. She IS violating the rules. She IS trying to wiggle off punishment. She is lying. She got caught lying, and she doesn't even have the decency to be ashamed of it.

So... she reads the pennydreadfuls, but when her father gives her a fake surname and is obvisouly trying to hide her, she thinks that “he was just a natural born worrier”. Oh, she is stupid.

“after she'd frustrated a number of governesses”. She had governesses, and she chose to behave so badly, her father had to send her to a boarding school? What a dumb bitch!

“he insisted she have the life of a normal well-bred Victorian young lady”.
Ever stopped asking why? And not even her father's wish could make her even try? Because “she didn't want the life of a well-bred Victorian young lady, she wanted the life of an air-pirate”.

So, she skips the French class (because what would air-pirates do with knowledge of languages? She knows English, and that's fine enough for her.) and goes to hide her pennydreadfuls. She picked the lock to the dormitory (why was the door locked? To give her a chance to pick the lock, a skill she learned from the books. Probably to prove that they are “educational”, and she learns more from them than the school.

So, she breaks in to the dormitory, and finds a mechanical maid sobbing there. How did she get in, and why did she choose the girls' dormitory to cry in? (Oh, there's another door to the room, through the servant's staircase. Why would there... uh, never mind. rolling eyes)
The maid has done a rather embarrassing and costly mistake. (Why would she wash sheets with school blazers? That will spoil both. And she most likely doesn't even need to wash the school blazers. The school is already fighting for survival, mistakes like this just cannot be happening.) The maid is scared that she will be scrapped. She should, you know.
And Lily is there to comfort the maid and saying things like “Maybe I could write to the school board on your behalf?” I suppose this scene is here to show how egalitarian and fair Lily is.

Then Lucretia and Alice come in - to give us the “best girl bully” scene. Lily says she skips classes because she “doesn't feel like coming to class”, and insults the French teacher. Then she gets the maid involved, and of course, the bully girl finds out the mistake the maid made.
This to give Lily a chance to finish the show about how amazing she is, as she steps in to defend the maid. Doesn't matter at all. She got her into trouble anyway, and - of course - refuses to take any responsibility of it, because she's just too dumb to understand it.

“Lily had never wanted to hit anyone so much – she could barely stop herself. But she did, because she'd made a promise to Papa to behave, and behaving meant not causing trouble.”
Now she remembers it. As if hitting Lucretia would have changed anything.
And they get into a fight anyway. And the girl who was bragging about being able to survive in an alley against her pennydreadful villains couldn't keep hers against two spoiled girls.

And, of course, we'll have another “so unfair” scene with the Kraken
“Lily glanced at the Academy's motto carved in the granite lintel. Vincit Omnia Veritas – Truth Conquers All. Not in this case, Lily reflected.”
Yes, let's ignore the facts that
a) she lied to her
b) she was skipping classes
c) she was in the dormitory that was locked
d) she was there to hide her illicit activities e) she punched a girl on face.

“Please, Mrs McKracken,” Lily cried, “don't put me in there, I'm afraid of the dark.”
Is this some sort of effort to play victim?
No, she is afraid of the dark.
—
—
And insects, mice, rats...
—
—
Is this ever going to be addressed in the book?

Malkin was OK, Robert was OK
But then we get back to Lily, and that is not OK.

“She'd never fit in at this hateful school. Whenever she did something exuberant she was punished for it.”
Yeah, let's not take any responsibility of one's own choices.

“the smokey scent of burning pig fat that trailed behind Gemma”
Yeah. Gemma the pig. The stupid, clumsy pig.

“Passing beneath a wall-mounted gas lamps, Lily noticed her hands were flecked with coal dust; she looked around for a curtain or some chintzy upholstery to wipe them on”
OMG! Now she's suddenly concerned about her appearances? Could you decide what you want with her, Peter?

And then she faints. End of scene. sigh

The next scene starts with she having a fit, where she refuses to accept what she has just been told, like a five years old. She must be intellectually challenged.

And apparently Madame Verdigris is a villain as well. sigh

We get more of the rollercoaster, because Peter can't seem to decide what kind a person Lily is.
Lily almost blabbers out who she is in the busy zeppelin airport, and that Madame Verdigris stops her seems to be just a show of what kind of horrible woman she is. It would be wonderful if it turned out that she isn't a villain, but I don't have much trust in Peter.

Then Lily sees a caricature that seemed familiar.
“she noticed a man clutching a lacquer walking cane arrive and join the back of the queue of boarding passengers. His razor-thin figure was clothed in a dark wool suit and tall stovepipe hat, and he wore silver reflective O-shaped spectacles. Something about him seemed oddly familiar; he was, she thought, somehow connected to Papa – but she couldn't quite place him. She was still trying to put a name to his craggy face when she stepped into the corridor of the airship's gondola and he disappeared from sight.”
So, noticing and remembering things wasn't something her pennydreadfuls taught her was important.

Lily keeps fraternising with the mechanics, and the housekeeper (?) disapproves. Lily says “It's good manners”. As if she cared one bit about good manners.

BTW, she's 13.

She thinks the housekeeper stinks, so she tries to open the window, and the housekeeper stops her, because she wants to keep it silent, doesn't want to sit in draft, and the zeppelin apparently smells smoke when it moves. Totally reasonable. Lily's reaction “Lily bristled. Why was Madame making such demands?”
I hate this dumb, selfish brat.

Now, apparently she didn't take her precious penny dreadfuls with her when she left the school, so she doesn't have anything to do. I suppose she doesn't care about reading when it's not inappropriate, or violating rules. Like Belle of Beauty and the Beast. “Oh, I am passionate about books and libraries and reading, I read all the time! You say the castle has an amazing library? I don't care, I want to go snooping around in the living quarters of that horrible beast, because I was told not to!”
Oh, she did. And the housekeeper didn't tell her off. What a horrible woman she is.

So, the caricature comes to their cabin - of course - and Lily sticks her tongue out at him, when she thinks he isn't looking. Such a nice, well-behaving little girl she is.

“It occurred to her that the thin man had twice addressed the housekeeper as Madame, not Madam, and she wondered how he knew the woman's preferred title.”
Is that supposed to be proof of that those two know each other? Apparently. sigh

She gets drugged and sleeps the whole trip, but “The journey to the house took less than half an hour, but Lily stayed awake the whole time”
Why would she not?

“Lily nodded meekly. She was too wrung out by the emotion of the day to find a suitable response.”
That was the suitable response. I suppose she was to be obnoxious and sassy. I suppose she will be. Apparently the only way to make her behave is to have her interact with machines or make her emotionally overwhelmed.

Madame set herself up as the lady of the manor - which she in practice is now. And Lily is upset. Why?

It's winter and Mrs Rust starts the fire when she arrives? WTF? So Peter doesn't know how that works, either. sigh No surprise there either.

A blanket stored in a cupboard is very dusty, and Lily shakes the dust off over her bed.

The clockmaker's shop and work was interesting to read. Now, I don't know enough of that to spot problems, but I'd like to think Peter knows SOMETHING he writes about.

And then he pinches Asimov's First Law of Robotics. Though he names it “First Rule of Mechanics”. It's pretty messy, as he is kind of building on “have robots souls” ideas without having founded it on his book. No, machines don't have souls. Machines don't have emotions. Machines don't feel. The girl slapping the robot maid would have had hurt her hand. The maid would not have felt anything. Bu

Cogheart is a tale with many moving pieces, not unlike the steam-punk mechanicals that Lily's father builds. Unfortunately I think it's a bit flat, as I never felt very attached to the characters. Also, for a middle grade novel, there is an awful lot of proverbializing and “lessons learned” sort of speeches, which I found annoying and am sure many of the target audience would as well. It also has a bit of a dark feel in some places, not unlike the Series of Unfortunate Events series - only these dark events don't seem to have much effect on the characters except as plot devices.

Despite these flaws, I did finish the book and found the mech aspect interesting. I just have doubts about the book's ability to hold the attention of a middle grade reader due to the issues I've mentioned.

So, this is a rough one for me to review. Anyone who has been following me for any length of time knows how much I love Middle Grade books. There's something beautiful about a tough topic dealt with in a way that is consumable by young readers. Even better, there's something lovely about watching a young person conquer an unimaginable adventure. I always have high hopes for all the MG books that I read, and this was no exception.

At first, I was enchanted with the idea of a steampunk story for young readers. The idea of Lily living in a place that was populated with dirigibles and mechanical people just stole my heart. However, I soon found that this book had a few flaws. While the story moves quickly, and the plot stays on track, there's not a lot of depth here. I found myself thinking about many other books that this story is similar to, that do things just a little bit better. It's a little cookie cutter, and that made it a rough read for me.

Now, do I think that young readers would like this book? Probably! The story has plenty of twists and turns and Lily's group is plucky to a fault. As I mentioned above, the plot moves quickly and the characters are rather fun. As an adult reader though, this book just didn't hold the magic that I really wanted it to. Lily was the basic version of every young heroine I've followed on an adventure, and all of the things that happened to her felt similar to other books I've read as well. This wasn't a bad book, just not a memorable one for me.

For young readers who enjoy high flying adventures with a touch of danger, this is a book they'll love. For adult readers, I'm not so sure.