Betsy CornwellRezensionen

A quirky reimagined version of Cinderella with fae elements and a mechanically minded heroine who is more at home when she's tinkering, fixing and inventing.

Nicolette was heartbroken after the loss of her mother and that only got worse when her father remarried. Her new stepmother and stepsisters wanted nothing to do with her - though they put on a decent front for her father. But when her father dies as well, Nicolette is pushed into the role of servant and so she stays for years - apathetic and numb to her life.

But everything changes on her sixteenth birthday when Nicolette receives a letter that leads her to the legacy her mother left behind - her workshop full of bits and bobs to create mechanical masterpieces. Thriving with her new path, Nicolette dares to dream of a better life - if only she is willing to take it.

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but this wasn't it. This was a bit of a bizarre read. There is a lot of potential here but it doesn't quite reach the heights it could. The romance was clumsy and while likely designed with some sort of empowering girl power message it just feels awkward. The idea of not ending up with the prince was great. Fully supported it. But I didn't love Nick's feelings for him in the first place. It didn't feel like it developed organically and it felt ridiculously over the top. To be fair - probably also the standard for YA but I wasn't feeling it. I agree Fin didn't love her. I just also didn't agree that she loved him. So it irritated me that her empowering moment was letdown by the fact she had to have it at all. Couldn't she just be friends with the prince?

I hated the secondary complication of Fin loving Caro. Love triangles irritate me but this one particularly felt icky. Probably the idea they'd be forever locked into a threesome. And the final interaction was just too dismissive. It felt like all that build up was just gone in 3 seconds and it made no sense. It just felt awkward and out of place. The only one who seemed to have her head on straight regarding romance was Caro. I did think Caro's viewpoint was refreshing for a YA novel but it also came out of nowhere. It sort of felt like the author decided she should be preaching all the popular moral values and just mashed them up and it just didn't work.

That said, Nick was a great character. The author did a great job writing a likeable, relatable character with strengths and flaws. She wasn't all powerful or all knowing, she was just a normal everyday girl who wants love and friendship and happiness and I was all for it. I may have hated the romance but I adored her realisation at the end about what she wanted from life.

And then, finally—with a feeling in my chest that was a sinking and a rising at once, a drowning and a stirring of wings—I knew my answer. I could not fit inside a story someone else had built.

Cornwell, Betsy. Mechanica (p. 290). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.


On the other hand I hated the stepmother and stepsisters. They were horrible. Nick's despair was heartbreaking. The friendship between Nick and Caro was terrific though. The fierce bond was a bit abrupt but people do sometimes just click and I liked that they spent time writing to one another to get to know each other better. Plus they were both so genuinely nice and it was refreshing. Even when they were potentially competing against each other for Fin, both of them were just supportive and kind to one another and it was great. I even rather liked the friendship between Fin, Nick and Caro - I would've liked to see it develop further without the romance complications.

In regards to the plot, I enjoyed the slower pace and the focus on Nick and her inventions and the life she was building. But not everyone will - it's very slice of life and that can be very hit or miss with people. The world building was interesting but a bit thin - I would've liked to know more about the Fae and her mother's history with them. I felt like it let the story down not going into the deeper connections. But what was introduced was good and kept my attention.

A fun steampunk retelling of Cinderella with genuinely nice characters and a straightforward plot. 3 stars.

I loved this vengeance story; deeply feminist and queer

A human boy is trying to prepare for college. A selkie girl is trying to learn about humans. They fall in love, and they need to work together to solve the mystery of a kidnapped girl. Selkies are a type of faerie that doesn't show up often in teen romance, so it was nice to see.

I'm not fond of revenge literature or movies, but when it's women getting revenge I'm a complete sucker. In Reader I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell we get Victorian England's answer to Lisbeth Salander. You know all the jokes about what bad taste in men the Bronte sisters had? Cornwell agrees with them and writes a sequel to Jane Eyre told from the perspective of Adele, Rochester's ward. It's just delicious. I have to admit, due to some complicated events in my life these days, I'm enjoying more simplistic fare, and Cornwell is simply - well, what? I don't want to say thrilling, it's not that powerful, but it's a little thrilling, a little titillating, a little like eating a perfect brownie. Just yum.

I want to keep this review of Betsy Cornwell's Reader, I Murdered Him brief. Let me just say that Reader, I Murdered him is a surprising and delightful, if at times disturbing, piece of feminist vigilante revenge fiction set in Victorian England and featuring Adele: the ward of Mr. Rochester for whom Jane Eyre was hired as a governess in the novel Jane Eyre. Cornwell's version of Adele is precocious and unflinching, starkly aware of the inequities between the sexes. To see Jane Eyre retold through Adele's eyes is powerful, and Adele grows into her own power as she moves away from Rochester and Eyre and into life among a boarding school community of other young women, all very conscious of the way success or failure on the marriage market will determine the conditions of the remainder of their lives. With Adele speaking truths everyone recognizes and no one wants to talk about, these young women begin finding ways to create lives they might once have thought impossible.

If you've read Eyre, Reader, I Murdered him will offer you a valuable companion to the perspectives and realities played out by Jane and Rochester. Even if you haven't read Eyre, you'll be able to appreciate the reversal of power Adele seeks to create.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own.

The Publisher Says: In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends' abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adèle grew up in the shadows—first watching from backstage at her mother's Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father's manor. When she's finally sent away to boarding school in London, she's happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele's new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adèle save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

“Why do you think, when women tell the stories of their lives, they end with marriage? It is not a happily ever after, chérie, only the end of happiness?”

In its bitter essence, Jane Eyre is a terrible, horrifying account of a cruel and controlling man's determined efforts to get the twisted things he most desired from the women he surrounded himself with. They had little choice in the matter. He exerted a charm, I'm told, in his "masterful" handling of them. I don't see it, myownself...Bertha or Jane, makes little difference, he was an archetypal narcissist in pursuit of minions.

I honestly forgot Adèle's existence in the original. Not a single scintilla of memory creased my cranium about her...how typical...and thus, when I got this book, I was in essence introduced to her for the first time. Her story is very affecting. I think it's a great shame that Adèle came into my awareness as a victim. Yes, she uses her victimhood to achieve something good as the Villainess, righter of wrongs and leveler of abusers. But there's a passage where her treatment of a loving soul, and her response to a shocking and disgusting betrayal, that just...rang so hollow to me. Her drive was always mitigated by her fears, as whose is not?, but her behavior is hard for me to mentally count as redemptive.

The resolution of the story is condign. It didn't hit the wrong notes so much as it simply played them too fast, too loud, and failed thus to distract me from my edge of unbelief. It's a fine book to give to your feminist granddaughter or romantically challenged niece.½

I adore fairy tale retellings, and I especially like it when the story takes a brand new twist on the familiar tale. Cornwell's Mechanica may be one of the most refreshing Cinderella retelling I've come across since Cinder. The world-building is fascinating. The story takes place in a kingdom in which Faerie magic has been banned because a Fey assassin killed the heir to the throne.

Nicolette’s mother had been a skilled inventor, creating mechanical trinkets and devices that had built the family's wealth. On her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette found her mother's workshop and began to use her own ingenuity and engineering talent to plan for a future in which she could earn enough money to buy back her family's home from her stepmother. I loved that this story was not about going to the ball to marry the prince. Instead, Nicolette's goal was to attend the Cultural Exposition Gala where she could show off her inventions and gain a sponsor for her work.

It just so happens that the plot neatly dovetails with the original story and Nicolette also gets a marriage proposal. And I was especially appreciative that she turned it down because she valued herself as more than just a political pawn or story.

This is the feminist Cinderella I've been waiting for. As much as I love the Cinderella story, my constant complaint is just how damn spineless the main character is in the original story. She meekly accepts her lot in life, accepts the abuse from her father (who was not dead in the Brothers Grimm version) and step-family, and doesn't even speak up for herself in the end while her step-sisters are getting their feet mutilated. And Disney has perpetuated that and reinforced that Cinderella's most important trait was her innate goodness and kindness -- and to add injury to insult, backslid even further with the 2015 movie by having her sit quietly in the attic after getting locked in. Oh, that movie made me SO MAD I practically had cartoon smoke coming out of my ears.

(Give me Danielle from Ever After any day of the week over Disney's doormat of a character. She grabbed a sword and freed herself, dammit!)

So, Mechanica was a breath of fresh air because HELL YES Nicolette saves herself. And not only does she save herself, she uses her intelligence to do so. AND she doesn't take the easy way out and marry the prince, which would have meant she's had lived in the lap of luxury for the rest of her life. No, she turned him down because she would not settle for a marriage that neither of them really wanted.

I'm so looking forward to a sequel because there's so many hints of what's coming next. (Like WAR! With Faerie!) And I'm so utterly in love with the worldbuilding and the characters, I want more.

This book is truly MAGICAL. The writing is gorgeous right from page one, and I wanted to dive into the words and world. I adored the creativeness of the steampunk aspects. It's all everything I could have wanted in a fairytale retelling.

The story isn't terribly complex, and some of the plot thread wrap-ups seemed thin, but what it does (namely following the Cinderella character as she develops her own agency), it does very well. I enjoyed and appreciated the exploration of friendship, platonic and romantic love, and being true to your own dreams.

This book had a lot of good things to say about love, family, identity, and religious hypocrisy. I can see it resonating with some readers.

For me, the execution was subpar, especially compared to Cornwell's other books. Rosie's poetry chapters added nothing, just repeated what we learned from Ivory's chapters and thus bloated the book and slowed the pace. Ivory's internalizations seemed much more juvenile (and expositional) than her actions and age warranted. Lots of fairytale elements were spattered in without actually exploring them in any kind of depth or coherency. The author clearly tried for a poetic prose style but didn't take it far enough to succeed.

Robin Hood has always been one of my favorite stories (I mean, who doesn't like sticking it to corrupt authorities and defending freedom?), and this retelling does the themes justice while also standing solidly on its own feet.

It deals with a lot more very serious issues than I expected (CW: attempted suicide, bullying, sibling abuse, and off-screen rape), but these issues are treated very well. I was fully invested in the multitude of characters, how they worked through the issues, and how they gradually learned to love and trust each other.

Sylvie and Jane's growing bond was wonderful. On a personal level I normally want nothing to do with children or birth, but the birth scene is one of the best examples of friendship and support I've ever read. It perfectly balances the danger and pain of childbirth with the joy it brings. Beautiful.

I loved the down-to-earth, practical feel in the book. It mentions things that many other books avoid, like breastfeeding around others, as if it's just a totally normal thing (which of course it should be). The complete lack of men freaking out about dressing in women's clothing, in fact embracing it, was so refreshing.

Overall this book goes to some dark places, which makes the lighthearted times that much more satisfying. Highly recommend.

Where do I even start? I absolutely adored following the main trio as their loving relationship only grows in beautiful and healthy ways. I LOVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP SO MUCH. I love how Nick grows as a person, through discovering her strengths and recognizing and working through her weaknesses. The book tackles many complex themes and pulls it off.

Most of all, though, the writing in this book is top notch. Utterly gorgeous. I can't quote specific lines because they are so embedded into the context of the book that they wouldn't make sense individually. The story is built through a powerful web of words and phrases that often made me stop, re-read, and roll their beauty around in my mind. I have such a clear picture of what the world looks like, but also how Nick sees it. I felt fully invested in experiencing the world and story from Nick's perspective. Cornwell does a masterful job of expressing how Nick reacts to events, of fully pulling in the reader and somehow making the characters' emotions crystal clear with complex, stunning wordsmithing. I legit sobbed-not just tears, full on sobbing-at one point.

I cannot recommend this duology enough.

Meh. It was okay. An interesting take on a Lady Robin Hood.

I try to express only my most honest opinion in a spoiler-free way. Unfortunately, there is still always a risk of slight spoilers despite my best efforts. If you feel something in my review is a spoiler please let me know. Thank you.

Nicolette loves her mechanical creations. She got it and learned it from her mother. After her mother dies when she was 9 years old. Her father remarries, and Nick thinks she will have a new family and friends in her stepmother and two stepsisters, but after her father dies the Steps show their true colors. Turning Nick into a neglected servant. Nick tries to find a way to be free and independent. She meets Caro and Fin, and they become friends who help her. Feeling for Fin develop. All the while a war with the Fey, that was banished years ago, is slowly brewing. But rumors are that the heir to the throne Prince Christopher wants to reopen things with the Fey.

Likes:
~Cinderella retelling
~An original take on an old story
~Nicks eagerness to save herself
~Steampunk
~Twist ending

Dislikes:
~Took awhile to get into

This is a Cinderella retelling but as a more steampunk sort of twist. It's interesting and original in its own way. It also explores relationships other than just the romantic kind, which I think is great. It also has Nick wanting to save herself, not just waiting around for a white knight to come and save her. She has a dream that she is willing to see through to the end. How she doesn't let romantic love change everything about her and what she wants. It's a great lesson that I think many people could learn from.

The premise underlying Betsy Corwell's The Circus Rose is engaging. Imagine an Earth-like world where religious fundamentalists fight against what they call "lies"—which include everything from fiction to magic to, you guessed it, circuses. Now imagine a circus traveling by air ship, run by a bearded woman whose twin daughters each have different fathers, featuring a chorus line of dancing boys who incite desire among audiences of all sexual proclivities, and a faerie who is both a magician and double-gendered. One of the twin daughters dreams of becoming an engineer; the other is a circus performer whose closet companion is a performing bear. When the circus is burned to the ground and then its performers and staff begin disappearing, it is up the the would-be-engineer twin, Ivory, to figure out what is happening and to rescue those she loves.

Yes, there is a lot going on in this book and it is peopled with interesting characters. The plot, however is less complex than the context in which it's set. It begins slowly, then races to a too-easy conclusion at the book's end.

If you love plot-driven narrative, The Circus Rose may disappoint you. If you enjoy fiction that creates and sustains interesting worlds and characters, you should find The Circus Rose an enjoyable read.

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.

I shall just write what most of the book reviewers have probably written the moment when they've stopped reading it right after they reached its ending. This novel's like Steampunk version of Cinderella, which isn't necessarily bad by any means, it's just not for everyone, for not everyone loves and adores Steampunk. I have to say that I am one of those who don't actually love or adore Steampunk, but that didn't stop me from giving this novel and this author a shot. Needless to say, I was surprised by it, very surprised, by every single chapter that I've read within it, and I am really looking forward to reading the continuation someday when I shall clear my schedule for a brand new Steampunk adventure and for a brand new story line.

*I WAS APPROVED OF AN ARC REQUEST IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW*

When first reading the synopsis, it’s fairly easy to become interested. However, when hearing it’s a retelling of Robin Hood, I jumped at the chance to read this book. Betsy Cornwell stole my breath away with this book, and I am proud to say that.

Silvie is a character I’m sure a good majority of us can relate to. For a good chunk of her life, she was raised in the nobility—meaning she never had to worry about food being on the table, or having endless clean clothing. Her eyes are opened, however, when secrets about her family’s true nature are revealed.

Throughout this book, Silvie has to—basically—relive everything she was told not to do growing up. In every sentence, in every conversation, you can see her struggle to find the right path. I love how Cornwell implemented this into the book, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

"I’m so grateful to you that it’s hard for me to think about it. That I don’t think about it. But I should . . . you gave up everything . . . And I’ve never even thanked you."

I found this quote to be one of the most important ones in the first few chapters. This quote really gave off how important things were getting for and to Silvie, and it also showed just how quickly her character was beginning to develop.

Cornwell did a really great job of making sure every character within the book had development, and it really brought the story together.

However, there was one thing I had a problem with. In the synopsis, it immediately tells you that there are more than just Silvie and her friend in the woods, that there is a host of other villagers. But it isn’t until nearly halfway into the book that these “other villagers” even show up. I felt that that was lately timed and could have come a lot sooner than it did.

Other than that, this book was spectacular. The characters—like I already stated—were well developed, the plot flowed nicely, and the story altogether was well planned out and executed. For this, I rate this book 4.5/5 stars.

Cornwell has definitely impressed me, and I’ll be looking forward to reading books from her in the future.

This book was a charming little delight. I'm generally not too thrilled with fairytale retellings, especially the wafty Disneyfied fairytales. Cinderella is a particular problem, because I'm sure it's obvious to anyone paying even a little attention that I am not the target audience for a girl who needs a makeover in order to catch a prince to save her from her situation. But this lovely book gently but firmly turned all that nonsense upside down, delivering a steampunky faerie-touched Cinderella who builds her own change, recognises the superficiality of insta-love, develops meaningful and equal relationships (including with women) and hammers her way to a far less dazzling but much more meaningful potential-for-happiness-ever-after. As a bonus, it is also prettily, if simply, told.

This is an amazing version of the Cinderella Story. You have Nicolette, Nick as the steps call her, who wants to be an inventor. Her mother was an inventor who taught Nicolette many things before she died. When her father remarries shortly after her death, he brings home her step-mother and 2 step-sisters. They treat her horribly just like the fairy tale version we all know. There is also a prince or heir as he is referred to, he needs to find a wife. Besides that, that story is very different. The fey have been banished from the kingdom and magic has been outlawed. When she turns 16, a letter from her mother is slid under her door and she is able to find her mother's laboratory and do some inventing of her own. When the steps stumble upon some of her inventions, they nickname her Mechanica, thus the title of the book. Nick is trying to make enough money to get her own studio for her inventing. She meets two wonderful friends and she has her first friendships with other people. Nick is a strong female lead character and the story is more about friendship, than romance. The cover of this book is what initially drew me to it. The idea of a female inventor and scientist is certainly an area where society is trying to introduce more females, so it is certainly timely. I hope that middle school girls and even high school girls would pick this book up and see that there is so much more they can be than what has been expected of them for years.

I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest reveiw.

The most generous thing that I can say about this book is that it was fast paced and easy to read in one sitting. Heavy-handed, it threw you through the plot unevenly. It was disappointing since I was looking forward to a gender-bent retelling of Robin Hood and while this promised so many things it didn't deliver on most of them. Perhaps others at different points in their lives will have more enjoyment of this book than I did.

This is a retelling of Robin Hood with most of the gender roles reversed. The characters aren’t all that fleshed out, but it’s still entertaining to read this version of a rousing revolutionary story from a female perspective.

Silvie, the soon-to-be “Queen of the Forest” takes on her role as “Robin Hood” after discovering another female, “Little Jane,” despondent over having been in a #MeToo situation. Rape, in most previous eras and even today in many cultures, was regarded as evidence that the female was "wanton," and she was thereafter scorned and “dishonored.” Silvie has [thus far] escaped the same fate, although she doesn’t feel totally safe in her home situation. But as Silvie muses, “Surely there’s more honor in - in going on.” Little Jane can’t go home, and so Silvie opts to join her in exile in Woodshire Forest.

They don’t go alone; they are joined by Robert Falconer, known as Bird, who is trustworthy and totally devoted to Silvie, as well as being devoted to the welfare of their city. After the threesome spring a midwife out of the jail in order to help with Little Jane’s impending childbirth, others soon join their ranks in the forest. In order to feed and care for everyone, they start robbing from the coffers of the Sheriff and even of the King, and redistributing the money to their band as well as the poor of the town.

Most of the characters from the original Robin Hood’s Merry Men make an appearance. There are almost no women in the classic Robin Hood stories, so many of them are transformed here to women. For example, the name of the midwife is Mae Tuck. Alan-a-Dale is now Alana Dale. There is even a switch of species, as with Much and Scarlett.

Discussion: There isn’t a lot of world-building, but there really doesn’t need to be. The underlying plot of rich, oppressive, and abusive overlords doesn’t need much in the way of embellishment. Except for Silvie and Little Jane, the characters aren’t well developed either, but most readers will know the original stories of Robin Hood. The delight comes from the fundamental changes in form the author makes, rather than from any deepening or rounding out of the different actors in the story.

Evaluation: This gender-switched Robin Hood makes for a fun and satisfying read.

I was excited to check out this book. The reimagined concept of Robin Hood with a gender reversal role was a thrilling thought. That is exactly what should have happened is "thrills". However, this book barely got afloat. None of the characters were that interesting. Yeah, I could keep them straight and knew who was who only because of the roles they portrayed but if this had been a regular story not reimagined; I would have not remembered any of them.

What saddened me was Silvie. I wanted her to pull out a win and knock it out of the park. Yet, she was mild at best. She didn't really act like a leader. Although, she was not the only one that lacked in strength. Her brother; Sheriff John. He was not the "evil" character that I imagined. Overall, you could say that I was "underwhelmed".

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Mechanica. The novel contains an amazing premise and I really did enjoy reading a Cinderella re-telling in a steam-punk setting such as this. However, I feel like the steam-punk setting contributed more to the story than the actual characters or writing. While the main character and the mesh of 'Cinderella' with a new plot is solid, the book leaves something to be desired.

I think my biggest issue with the book was that it wasn't developed enough. The book seemed to simply describe rather than properly develop. We got descriptions of events and we saw Nicolette's feelings but it all seemed extremely flat. It just seemed like there was something missing.

Another issue I had with the book was its ending. A great portion of the book builds up anticipation towards an event that Nicolette places nearly all her efforts toward. However, when the event actually takes place, the writing glosses over certain plot points that are important to that aspect of the story. This only led me to feel a terrible lack of resolution with the entire story. Questions that I had developed over the course of the story were also left unanswered when the novel came to an abrupt close, only furthering my confusion.

So, while the story is very neat and there are twists that shocked me, I feel like it just wasn't developed enough. I think that if the novel was fleshed out more, it would have been a lot better. While its not my favorite re-telling, its still very unique in its own right!

"The huntswoman sounded her horn and hounds rushed like water around our horses' feet..."

Started off beautifully, with a gorgeous, evocative first line. And then the murders began... However, then it continued on being way too descriptive of animals in pain due to human male's ineptitude. Hunting turns my stomach, could not finish and can not rate.

*eARC Netgalley*

Read my full review of the book at seriesousbookreviews.com! Spoiler Free! (Available August 23, 2015)
**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.**

This book had all the right parts for a great story but suffered from bad pacing and the wrong focus at the wrong times. I felt like too much time was spent trying to establish the world and Nicolette's setting when it was readily apparent early on. I wanted more plot and drama; and while it was great watching Nicolette grow as a character (I adored her and her spirit), I just needed that something else to keep my attention. It dragged for the middle 100 pages.

Overall, I loved the messages of this novel. The idea that girls can do anything they set their minds too; that they don't need someone else to save them and that they can pursue fields that are typical reserved for males are all messages that need to be in YA fiction for young girls to read about. I also loved the steampunk elements to the story and its nontraditional Cinderella approach.

I just wished it was a little more polished and had a nicer flow in order to keep the reader's attention so that they would learn these great lessons.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

Full Review: http://wp.me/p3txrs-13u (August 23, 2015)

I absolutely love this book! It is a unique take on the classic Cinderella story, but in this story, the sister-turned-servant tries to find her own way out of her situation instead of hoping for a prince to do it for her. She is an inventor, she is creative and she relies on her brain, her ideas and her drive to get her where she wants to be. This is an absolutely inspiring story for any young girl to learn you can make your own dreams come true.