Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola

9 reviews

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

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

panikos's review

mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

A fascinating, immersive read that delves into a period of history that I knew very little about. Mazzola's sense of setting is unmatched - she conjures up 1700s Paris with such vivid clarity, and she doesn't hold back in painting it as filthy and unglamarous. In many ways, the setting is the best part of the book, but that isn't to say the plot and characters are bad. The story is intriguing and somewhat difficult to predict, and I like that we are left constantly uncertain as to whether there is something supernatural afoot. The characters, while they didn't completely get under my skin, are all interesting enough to root for. 

I did feel that the ending was a little pantomime, and somehow anticlimactic. The author just about pulled it off, but I'd been hoping for a more gasp-inducing twist. While there are certain elements of the plot that took me by surprise, I did see a handful of key things coming - not enough to seriously hurt my enjoyment, but enough that I wasn't totally blown away by some of the bigger revelations. There's so much intrigue built up throughout and I'm not sure the conclusion totally lives up to it.

But on the whole, it was a good read, and I'm likely to check out Mazzola's other books in future. The cover of this one is absolutely gorgeous, too, so I'll be keeping it on my shelf. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Death

alireads's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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: Medical content, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Death, Murder, Child abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Pedophilia, Police brutality, Rape, Slavery, Trafficking, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Vomit

ophelia_autumn's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

3.75

 Overall, this was a fascinating read - 18th century Paris historical fiction that doesn't shy away from the cruel realities of the time: the squalor and the destitution, even the creepy secrets and fecal smells behind the palaces and the nobles. Even though I'm French, I learnt a few facts from this book, like an old-fashioned word in French and that there used to be something called the Samaritaine before La Samaritaine shop was created!
Let's talk about the three points of view - Madeleine, the astute prostitute / maid / spy, Véronique, the ingenious bourgeois teenager, Jeanne, Madame de Pompadour aka Louis XV's mistress. Although I wasn't fully convinced at the very beginning, I was soon won over by the different voices as they represented 3 parallel viewpoints from different perspectives on society, and in general I like the variety of characters. The common theme of women, poor people and non-white characters being trapped in the web of unfair people in an unfair world was well-crafted.
In this world, beauty seems a mask, a glamour, the machines created by Reinhart and his daughter a fascinating example of the liminality between the beautiful and the ugly, but also the living and the dead, another main theme. As someone who used to work in robotics, I liked to read about the machines as well as the characters discussing ethical points and science.
(Also, reading about clockwork machines and Madame de Pompadour woke up my Whovian radar, The Girl in the Fireplace, anyone?)
What I liked less: I wanted to feel more connection with the characters, I felt that all of them could have been explored more, especially Joseph and

his relationship with Madeleine

. I felt that Madeleine was incredibly brave, yet the scenes where she tries to spy and then report back were unsatisfying as they felt underwhelming and repetitive, for the first half of the book or so. Yet, the author portrayed Madeleine's shift from powerlessness to being an agent of her own life quite well, I just wished it would have been done earlier in the book.
I was sad that it seemed OK that so many animals were being killed for the sake of the anatomical or automation experiments, I know this was the status quo then, and still now, and seemed historically accurate, but I wish this has been explored more ethically, even though there were moments when Madeleine and Joseph were also uncomfortable with this.
I guessed a few plot twists but it didn't prevent me from appreciating the story and the atmosphere.

I want to thank Anna Mazzola and Orion publishing group for giving me an ARC version of the book in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley :) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse

Moderate: Death, Trafficking, Racism, Animal death, Sexism, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Sexual violence, Torture, Pregnancy, and Slavery

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

natashaleighton_'s review

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Death, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Sexual violence, Murder, Slavery, Death of parent, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse