![]() It's one of those few LGBTQ romances that is not defined by the protagonist's sexuality. In terms of Danny's sexuality: I almost wouldn't count this as a queer book. The "good guys" had their own motivations and the "bad guy" had an understandable motivation behind his actions. I won't go into too much detail with the rest of the characters, but generally speaking, there was a lot of delicious moral ambiguity that I love. He was simultaneously ancient and wise while having a complete naivety about humans and their emotions. When he meets a boy who begins to crack his shell of self-loathing, it really means something.Īnd Colton? P r e c i o u s. Speaking of whom, I loved him as a protagonist! He is just plain grumpy, but given his difficult life, why wouldn't he be? Since losing his father, he has entirely dedicated himself to work, at the cost of most friendships and his relationship with his mother. As a reader who was piecing it all together, it was perfectly paced that we were learning the world alongside Danny himself. Even the clock spirits themselves don't have all the answers to how they operate or how they came to be. ![]() Danny knows how clocks work, but he only believes the gods and clock spirits to be legends until he meets them. The best part of the world building was that the characters themselves didn't know everything about the physics of their world. Clock towers that control time, backed by an entire detailed mythos of deities? Count me in! From first picking up this book, I hoped and hoped that such an amazing premise would not disappoint, and trust me, Ms. I'm absolutely loving this new trend in YA fiction to make a world so detailed that the plot doesn't feel recycled. The last thing he ever expected was to meet a spirit that controls time itself - or to fall in love with him. He has worked so hard to become a good enough mechanic to save the city of Malden. ![]() ![]() Each city has its clock tower that safeguards its "time zone." If the clock tower stops working, so does time in the town, and the people in it become frozen and unable to escape - which is exactly what happened to Danny's father three years ago. This book came out of nowhere and hit me over the head with its awesome!ĭanny is the youngest clock mechanic in a alternative-world Victorian England where clock towers like Big Ben literally control time. Seriously.īlog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | Store So boring.Īlso: The DEUS EX MACHINA is strong with this one. I did not have time to care about their relationship. Danny meets the spirit and literally five pages later they kiss. There's no slow flirtation and chemistry, just instant sparks flying. LGBT steampunk romance makes for a shiny selling point, but it is marred by instalove and lack of development. Worst of all, the romance was so disappointing. Mechanics/machines themselves are a key feature of the steampunk genre, so this in itself is not interesting and/or different enough. This is a steampunk Victorian London FFS, how is there no atmosphere? I think perhaps its because the author opts for a generic portrait of Victorian London with the addition of clock mechanics, instead of developing details to make this world one which is truly unique and memorable. The citizens seem to be unaware of this, but the "they wouldn't understand" excuse seems like a shitty reason to keep them in the dark. what? The "monopolization of time"? As Danny points out, the towers and mechanics are crucial to keep the world functioning. The protesters regularly cause trouble throughout the novel, but their reasons for protesting are. ![]() But the whole thing seemed like an ill-conceived plot point used to throw some drama into the mix. What the book does focus on is a lot of protests from the general public against clock towers and clock mechanics. The manipulation and fracturing of time is interesting, and yet the book actually spent very little time on that. As I said, mechanics are not really my thing. The prose is forgettable and the plot wanders aimlessly for a lot of the book, making it really hard to keep turning pages. The world is creative, for sure, but I just couldn't find interest in it. Danny soon finds himself falling for the spirit of the tower in a whirlwind LGBT romance. Suffering from anxiety and haunted by the memory of his father who was trapped in a time-Stopped city, Danny tries to fulfill his job at Colton Tower. It's a Victorian steampunk universe where the ties between physical clock towers and actual time are inextricable - when two o'clock goes missing from Colton Tower, time itself is disrupted.ĭanny Hart is a clock mechanic, a timekeeper, someone with the ability to feel and manipulate time. I am obviously just not that interested in clocks and mechanics. ![]()
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