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Dec 09, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

This is a fucking phenomenal prose poem. I know, it's billed as a novel, but trust me on this: it's a prose poem. The writing is just gorgeous. As soon as I finished, I started all over again, just so I could wallow in the language and recognize the things which resonated on the second reading and hadn't on the first. The last novel that impressed me this much was Nicola Griffith's Slow River, and this is frankly better than Griffth's debut, Ammonite, which is an impressive debut in its own righ More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 14, 2011

Paul rated it:

Shortish and weird version: I love this book. If I were a tattoo person (by which I mean a person who gets tattoos, not a literal tattoo person, imprisoned in someone else’s skin), I’d want this book tattooed on my body, but a 3D style tattoo, which would look weird (and would probably look like a growth or a goiter), I know, but I can’t help how I feel!

Longer version: This book is another lesson in there being no absolutes in “things I don’t like” statements, at least when it comes More...

7 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Theresa rated it:

One of the best things about blogging is the exposure to books I wouldn't have known about if it wasn't for the various relationships forged along the way. One of my favorite authors (Alex Bledsoe) recently recommended the book Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine and once I read that the story was about a "steampunk-flavored circus," I was in.

Mechanique is a meandering story, much like the circus it depicts. Set some time in a distant future in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 07, 2011

Judy & Marianne from rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jun 05, 2011

Kater rated it:

You will never read another book quite like this one. Lyrical, charming, dark, and very, very steampunk. It's a tale of the circus, of acrobats with copper bones, of a war-torn post apocalyptic society, and of two people drawn together by their desire for a pair of metal wings. This is not the sort of book I usually read, and this is not the sort of book I usually enjoy.

The chapters are short, and they all take place from differing points of view. The circus Tresaulti has many cha More...

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May 24, 2011

Lea rated it:

I can't write. My artistic gifts are in other areas, and usually I'm okay with that. But every now and again I'll read a book that makes me grind my teeth in frustration -- why oh why oh WHY can't I write like this?!

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is exactly that kind of book.

If I COULD write, I could explain how elegant the writing is, how the author weaves together various stories and viewpoints to gradually build the tale of the Circus Tr More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2012

Derek rated it:

I know some say this a beautiful prose and I agree. Unfortunately, as a novel it seems disjointed and will take some getting used to but after a few chapters you will settle in and it will become easier to figure out who is speaking. Although the author was new to me I caught the quote on the front by one of my current favorite authors, Cherie Priest, and so I took a chance. Although I will not go out there and say it was great I will say that it was good, hence my rating. The plot is there, More...

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Feb 20, 2012

Meaghan rated it:

So it turns out there were two steampunky books about circuses released in 2011, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and this one. They begin similarly, with descriptions of how outsiders first approach the circus, and from there on the comparison is probably inevitable. The world of Mechanique, however, is very different from the lushly-described world of The Night Circus: where The Night Circus is almost overwhelmingly rich, Mechanique seems barren and dry.

The story takes place in a More...

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Oct 01, 2011

Shannon rated it:

Until last week, I had never heard of Genevieve Valentine. I was reading the latest edition of Clarkesworld Magazine* which had a interview with Ms. Valentine about Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. The interview intrigued me, so I downloaded a sample of the book onto my beloved Kindle. I read the entire sample that night, bought the e-book, and kept reading.

The novel reads more like a tied-together string of flash fictions than a regular novel. I've never read anything quite More...

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Jul 02, 2011

Pam rated it:

I cannot imagine how difficult this book was to write. Seriously. There was decisions to be made, so very many decisions. And with those decisions, ohmygosh, direction forward with consequences. But Genevieve Valentine did it, made those decisions, brought forward character, individual interactions, small social groups, world and worlds. Stunning accomplishment and the novel, to me, is a parallel to the magic and the strenght of the circus, this circus, any circus, future circuses.

This More...

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Jan 01, 2012

H. Anne rated it:

I liked the overall concept of a dystopian-steampunk sort of world. In ways it made me think of China Mieville's the Scar where people are remade. I liked Boss and the twist on necromancy (though I admit, I still don't understand the griffin tattoo or why it granted power). The whole idea of the metal wings made from bone as well which made them haunted after a fashion, also neat.

But on the whole, the novel felt unrealized. I was lost through most of the novel as I couldn't figur More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Ian Thomas rated it:

This book moved me in ways which are difficult to explain. The author violates every convention you'd expect to find in fiction. She switches point-of-view characters constantly. She switches from past to present tense and back again. She even jumps between first-person, third-person, and even second-person narration. The story isn't told in linear fashion.

And yet, it not only works, it's absolutely brilliant. This is without question one of the best books I've read in years. That it More...

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Sep 22, 2011

Yvensong rated it:

4 1/2 Stars

Wow! I understand that this is G. Valentine's first novel. I sure hope she considers writing other novels. She had me enthralled from the first page on, even though she did something I usually detest in novels. The narrative switches from second person, third person and first throughout the novel. Most authors do that so poorly that it detracts from the story. In this novel, it adds layers of complexity, making this one of the most interesting novels I've read in a while. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Kyle rated it:

I'm going to start this review off with the admission that this book isn't for everyone. It's written as a series of sketches from multiple points of view, jumping person (1st, 3rd, and even some 2nd) and tense (past and present), and jumping around in time as well. As a result, it's a challenging read. If you prefer your stories told in a clear, linear fashion, you'll probably have a bad reaction to this one. The ultimate result is a sense of a story told by a group of people at a get-toget More...

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Aug 03, 2011

Tamsin rated it:

A beautiful story of a travelling circus set in a post apocalyptic world, but things are not quite as they appear! My favourite part of the storytelling is that the magic and mystery stays as such - the author doesn't feel the need to try to explain anything, we just accept and believe what we are told which makes it all the more magical. The Circus Tresaulti, under the management of Boss becomes a new home and family for those who most need saving (and repairing!)until disharmony between someo More...

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Dec 14, 2011

Jenny rated it:

This book suffered from coming out at roughly the same time as The Night Circus, being in more or less the same genre, having more or less the same themes, and being not as good and not as advertised. But it's the not as good that is the most important. Like the Night Circus, this book takes up a magical circus with steam punk influences. The characters are not as well developed and neither is the world. It struck me that the author of The Night Circus talks about being influenced by the Theatre More...

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Jun 15, 2011

Tahlia rated it:

If you like strange and different and are fascinated by the idea of a steampunk circus, then don’t miss Mechanique It’s unlike anything I have read before. I didn’t dislike it, but I couldn’t say that I really liked it either. The idea is great, the story good but the way it’s written made it hard for me to get into.

The first half of this book jumps between characters, events and times so much that I was never sure who was narrating the story. The primary narrator didn’t have a name, More...

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May 12, 2011

M.K. rated it:

MECHANIQUE is an enormous book—not in size (for it is rather physically compact) but rather in scope. Valentine has an astonishing talent for suggesting a thousand words of backstory with a dozen or so well-crafted words. And yet, the effect is not at all spare or stripped down; you walk away feeling as though you've just read an epic. All the characters are fascinatingly flawed, full of contradictions. There are no villains in this story; everyone's motivation is understandable and, to varying More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2012

Britt rated it:

To call MECHANIQUE a book or a novel seems like it diminishes this piece. It's beauty like I've never seen it done before. More prose poetry than a "novel", I found myself lingering while reading this so as it make it last for as long as I could.

I bought this because of my love of steampunk, and it definitely delivers a fresh perspective on the steampunk aesthetic.

I'm hardly a fan of multiple POVs or a barely-there plot line, but MECHANIQUE truly shows how to d More...

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Aug 24, 2011

Craig rated it:

Though it has steampunk flavoring, Mechanique is a hybrid novel, much like the half-human/half-mechanical characters (creatures?) it describes. It’s a New Weird dark fantasy tale set in a dystopian war-torn landscape. The structure of the story and its narrative cogs are very postmodern. The text vacillates between first person narrative (in the voice of Little George, the Circus gofer) and third person points-of-view that range from brief character sketches to omniscient mis en scenes.
More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2011

Paul rated it:

The story is very unique and intriguing, the characters memorable, and the organization of the chapters is perfectly designed for my reading style. The average chapter length is about 3 pages, which allows me to read in short spurts while simultaneously urging me to "read just one more." Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

On the other hand, aspects of the author's style frustrated me. The story's timeline is a mish-mash of flashbacks that span decades. This arrangement More...

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Sep 08, 2011

Amy rated it:

This book had so much potential, but it fell short for me. It was too choppy, chaotic and unclear. Often the narrator shifted without notice from 1st to 3rd person and this just left me confused. Also, the author's writing style was very choppy and hard to follow. It sounded like she had the story, but didn't quite know how to tell it yet.

The potential is in the story itself. This is a steampunk book. Hands down written for a specific audience, but still could have been better. More...

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Sep 01, 2011

Thoraiya rated it:

Once I had a handle on the fact that the Mechanical Circus was animated, not by technology, but by magic (other steampunk I have read has been more alternative history), I inhaled the prose with all its coppery smells and musical chords borne on breezes.

(Yet again, it is 2am! I may regret staying awake to finish)

Amazing characters.

Exquisite use of parentheses, which I had taken to crossing out whenever I was critiquing, scorning them as novice's mistakes. How More...

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Aug 18, 2011

Thewatchmaker rated it:

It took me awhile to decide whether I liked this book or not. I liked the world that was created, and I liked the characters. But the style of writing was very chaotic. You had chapters with alternating POV. You had one character's in first person. You had dozens of others in 3rd, and sometimes you weren't sure who was talking. The are also more flashbacks, including short trips back in time to tell a scene from another perspective until there's nothing left to your imagination, than in all six More...

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May 10, 2011

branewurms rated it:

I don't even know how to say anything about this book. I mean, steampunky, magical, timeless circus! Awesome, right? But the Awesome Factor(tm) doesn't even begin to cover it. This book was beautiful. Really and simply beautiful. Elegantly understated (it was amazing how much was conveyed with so few words), with an eerie emotional force. A real sense of - how should I say it? - mono no aware, I think. (Which is a little strange, given the particular nature of the Circus's secret, but I think it More...

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Feb 07, 2012

Kaitlyn rated it:

Mechanique is about so many things and nothing all at once, there is no real beginning or end with the circus and after reading the novel my imagination was overrun with the possibilities of it's characters and even it's setting. This novel is beautiful and devastating at the same time and Genevieve Valentine has the gift of making realistically flawed characters in such a fantastical world. She makes characters that don't need names to be attached to, full people that invoke raw anguish and hap More...

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Jul 30, 2011

JW rated it:

Wow. First novel.

What could have been fascinating read in a post-semiapocalyptic world was a meandering, poorly structured mystery novel. It jumps artlessly and needlessly between POVs, switching from first to third person. It jumbles flashbacks together with lots of awkward, explicit foreshadowing, self-accusing asides and parenthetical statements.

The characters are brilliantly drawn but by the time the secondary players came into use, my eyes were skipping past parag More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 20, 2011

Andrea rated it:

Mechanique is the story of a circus in another world, a world that's been at war for hundreds of years, and a circus filled with mechanical people who cannot die. Various despots in the countries where the circus works envy the circus its mechanical, deathless people, and want to discover how the magic works.

The characters are compelling and original, the writing is lovely, the plot is utterly unusual and unique. There are no world-saving schemes, no messiahs, no saviours, no quests, n More...

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May 08, 2011

Liviu rated it:

I had very, very high hopes for this one but they were not really fulfilled; I liked the style well enough for the most part though it did not blow me away like say Desideria to which I hoped this will be similar nor like say a similar mainstream book in some ways, Tiger's wife, but the content was only ok to mediocre. Maybe I am not that much into circus books the way i liked a theater book like Desideria so I did not really care that much what happens with anyone in the book; another niggle wa More...

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May 09, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Dark and tense and powerful. One of very few contemporary novels that didn't have any missteps for me. Every plot point and characterization felt inevitable and right.

The writing is gorgeous--lyrical and dramatic without being overwrought. Every so often there is a phrase that makes you feel like you've just been punched...in a good way. The characters are compelling, tough, and vividly drawn.

If you think you might like this, you probably will. But I'd also recommend this More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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