Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola

8 reviews

anapthine's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Child death, Death, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Classism, Violence, and Slavery

breadbin's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This story was unpredictable. I knew it was leading me to think certain ways about characters that could prove to be wrong but had no idea in what way it would go. The ending brings a marvellous twist within a twist both in terms of the genre the book is leaning towards as well as the narrative and I really enjoyed that. It also wraps up very neatly with every quirk and curiosity explained and every character coming to some ending

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Murder, Child death, and Racism

Minor: Animal death

A story about overcoming trauma doesn't typically have to be so neat in it's plot lines. Madeleine is an orphan, taken into a brothel where her sister is impregnated and dies in child birth. Madeleine is also brutally assaulted and left with a life-long scar across half her face by an influential police officer. The story begins with M being recruited by the police - her abuser to be precise - to be inserted into the workshop of a great, but unusual and rather twisted, clockmaker where she will spy on his work and report back on whether she sees him as a danger, particularly to the king, who is fascinated by biology and has been requesting clockmakers build more and more elaborate clockwork automata to display the function of the body of animals - including humans. The book explorers M's attempts to live with her deceit after befriending the clockmakers daughter, Veronique, who has also lived a traumatic life after the death of her close friend at the hands of the nuns who ran the convent she had been sent to live in by her father since her mother had died in childbirth. The book takes the time to explore M & V's shared trauma whilst also giving them both opportunities to become fish-out-of-water: around the grand house in M's case and out on the streets of Paris in V's case as the pair begin to delve into the ongoing, and seemingly unrelated, mystery of children going missing. It is heavily implied that the clockmaker is using some kind of black-magic fuckery to extract the lifeforce from living creatures and use it to bring his clockwork creatures to life and after V's death it appears for a time that he was responsible, using her lifeforce to bring his latest creation - a beautiful clockwork girl who can write messages, breath, and even cry, specifically commissioned by the king to be presented in court - to life. However, no. Turns out: man's just great with the old cogs and what. The clockwork girl only writes prewritten messages as programmed and when she sends to develop a mins of her own it's actually because V, secretly still alive and hidden inside the base of the clockwork machine, is, with the aid of her father, attempting to reveal the truth about the missing children. But, because the children are going missing *pretty much* on the order of the king, a little subterfuge becomes the only option. The kings mistress, madame du pompadore, had huge influence with the police and is revealed to be behind M being put into the clockmakers workshop in the first place and so, once the conspiracy is revealed by V, she does all the heavy lifting to wrap the novel up tidily. She sweeps the kings involvement under the rug to maintain the royal status quo (about 30 years before the French Revolution.....oh well) and ensures that the death of the true guilty party is seen as the retribution for the deaths of the children but M and V's involvement will never be known and they'll never be reprimanded for his death. She also sees that M gets paid the money she was promised for doing the job to begin with - a large sum that assured M's life would turn around that the police (ie. The man who scarred her whilst rapping her in a brothelv when she was 15 or something) had been withholding to force her into continuing to spy on the clockmaker. V & M also get a job opportunity to go and do something elsewhere in Europe, getting them out of Paris.

highladymagnus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Classism, Cursing, Police brutality, Excrement, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Rape, Child death, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Addiction, and Slavery

Minor: Death of parent and Racism

yunuspapilio's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Vomit, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Torture, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Child death, Death, Racism, Sexual violence, Stalking, Violence, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Misogyny, and Murder

Moderate: Blood, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Classism, Adult/minor relationship, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Confinement, Alcohol, Colonisation, Addiction, and Alcoholism

madamelacy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

A gothic tale of a woman sent to spy on a maker of automata and his daughter. The story is set in the backdrop of 18th Century Paris where children have been going missing. Partly based on true events, this was a really gripping reimagining. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal death, and Violence

Paris, automata, Pompidou

clairew97's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Body shaming, Death, Sexual violence, Violence, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Excrement, Grief, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Blood, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Classism, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Death of parent

sehwa's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.75

I picked up this book in the library because the cover was beautiful and the synopsis sounded interesting. Sometimes, it's good to judge a book by its cover! Anna has a beautiful writing style throughout the book. I really took to madeline and veronique as characters, they were lovely. Every character has their own tragic back story which fit with the times. The mystery parts of this book were very good, it keeps you on your toes guessing until near the end of the book. However, I really loved the unlikely friendships that grew in such horrible circumstances. 
Overall, it was a very well rounded story with a good murder/mystery element to it. I definitely think it's worth the read if you like darker subjects :) 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Pregnancy, Classism, Emotional abuse, Grief, Pedophilia, Rape, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Slavery, Blood, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Violence, Murder, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

lucymosscrop's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Murder, Child death, Child abuse, Blood, Death, Grief, Gore, Medical content, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Slavery