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La Mécanique du cœur

Mathias Malzieu

3.60 · Rating details · 17,241 ratings · 1,926 reviews

Le jour de la naissance de Jack, en 1874 à Edimbourg, est si froid que son coeur en reste gelé. La sage-femme qui l'a mis au monde, mi-sorcière mi-chaman, remplace l'organe défectueux par une horloge qu'il ne faut pas oublier de remonter tous les matins. Le garçon doit aussi éviter toute émotion : pas de colère, pas d'amour. Mais il va rencontrer une chanteuse de rue au re ...more

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Paperback, 177 pages

Published October 22nd 2007 by Flammarion (first published October 2007)

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Community Reviews

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· 17,241 ratings · 1,926 reviews

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Mar 27, 2013 Jess rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: magical-realism

If you're a fan of this book then stop reading now! You won't like what I'm about to say...

Maybe it's the writing or maybe it's the translation but I really did not like the way this book was written. The entire way through it was as though Malzieu was telling me a story instead of showing me one, and that is a writing style which I personally can only ever tolerate in short stories.

The plot felt far too predictable to me; the outcast and the school bully fight over the s ...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Jo-anne Dulla rated it it was amazing

The title says: The Boy with a Cuckoo-clock Heart.

While I don't speak french much less understand it, I was able to find an english version of this book.

Hurray for translations!

So there I was, on my sickbed, just finished reading a sad book but with a happier ending, thinking on what to do and where to go where my feet can't take me. I was scanning ibooks for a 3rd book to read for the day and stumbled upon "The Boy with a Cuc ...more

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Sep 07, 2015 Ylenia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-reads

This book was okay. Good but not amazing. I liked some parts but overall it wasn't anything special.

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Mar 08, 2013 Sam Grove rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Very disappointed in this. The premise seemed very intriguing and I'm a sucker for love stories with a bizarre/dark twist to them (think Edward Scissorhands and you'll be on the mark!)
But this, well suffice to say doesn't even come close to Tim Burton's genius.

The reason why this falls so very short is the writing.
One of my pet hates is when writers use that lazy technique of jumping forward in time with no explanation of what happened during the skipped part. Usually it reads 'so and so did ...more

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Mar 18, 2017 Emily Just Emily*~* rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: romance

I thought this was an incredible love story. First love. Imagine being 14 again and "falling in love" for your first time. Remember? It almost turns into obsession, crossing countries and whatever just to get to be around that person even in it's awkwardness.
Tragic ending.
Fantastic imagery and descriptions.
"..you destroyed your heart in front of Miss Acacia. You wanted to show her how much you were suffering, and at the same time how much you loved her. It was a rash and desperate act. B ...more

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Dec 18, 2010 Michael rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, read-in-2010

Born on the coldest day ever recorded, Jack's heart is frozen and replaced with a cuckoo-clock.

Abandoned by his mother and raised by the witch doctor, Dr. Madeleine who installed the clock, Jack is warned that he must never fall in love because it could overwhelm his unusual pacemaker. Jack does well for about ten years, until he meets Miss Acacia, a street performer who wears glasses and has a pretty voice. Jack is in love and sets out to find Miss Acacia.

Thus begins the story of " ...more

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Aug 03, 2015 Martini rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-steampunk-gaslight, z-challenge-lies-mich-2015

What a pity! With a different ending this would have gotten four stars. (view spoiler) ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Sally rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, magic-realism

Jack was born and abandoned on the coldest day in history, with a heart too frozen to beat. The witch doctor replaces it with a clock, but warns him that his new heart is fragile. It's too delicate to withstand strong emotions of hate, excitement, and most of all, love. Jack, however, falls in love at first sight with a singer and has to decide if it's worth risking his life to pursue her.

I found the premise of the book to be fascinating and I really, really wanted it to be good. The ...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Jen added it · review of another edition

A hurricane in a skirt named Miss Acacia, a pet hamster named Cunnilingus, tiny bottles filled with one's own tears, and a cameo appearance from Jack the Ripper... What's not to like?!

In "The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart," Jack's life depends on a clock installed in his chest. But Jack must be careful, because anger or love will break his fragile heart. Still, he journeys from Edinburgh to Andalusia in search of his beloved Miss Acacia.

Mathias ...more

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Jan 03, 2018 Kirsty rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: january-2018, around-the-world-in-80-books-2018

I expected that Mathias Malzieu's novel of magical realism, The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, would be both quirky and charming, and full of whimsy. It is described as 'a dark and tender fairytale spiced with devilish humour.' I have had the novel on my to-read list for years, and was very excited when my slim hardback copy arrived. However, my overwhelming feeling about the novel is one of disappointment.

The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart has been translated from its original French by Sarah Ar/>The I expected that Mathias Malzieu's novel of magical realism, The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, would be both quirky and charming, and full of whimsy. It is described as 'a dark and tender fairytale spiced with devilish humour.' I have had the novel on my to-read list for years, and was very excited when my slim hardback copy arrived. However, my overwhelming feeling about the novel is one of disappointment.

The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart has been translated from its original French by Sarah Ardizzone, and opens in Edinburgh in 1874. A baby named Jack is born to a very young mother, and is found to have a frozen heart. He is given an operation, in which the unconventional Dr Madeleine 'surgically implants a cuckoo clock into his chest.' The novel's first sentences set the initial tone, although they do give a feeling of fairytale and wonder, which is not carried through the entire book: 'Firstly: don't touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. Secondly: master your anger. Thirdly: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.'

The novel is narrated by Jack, and follows his infatuation with an Andalusian girl made of fire: 'Almost without realising it, I'm falling in love. Except I do realise it too. Inside my clock, it's the hottest day on earth.' Dr Madeleine, who becomes his guardian after his mother abandons him, worries that love will be a dangerous experience, and that his heart will be quite unable to take the strain. She tells him: 'Your cuckoo-clock heart will explode. I was the one who grafted that clock on to you, and I have a perfect understanding of its limits. It might survive the intensity of pleasure, and beyond. But it is not robust enough to endure the torment of love.' Jack's narrative voice rarely feels authentic when he is supposed to be a child, and there is little change within it as he reaches adulthood. There is next to no character development within the novel, which is a real shame.

The initial descriptions which Malzieu gives of Edinburgh are highly sensuous: 'Edinburgh and its steep streets are being transformed. Fountains metamorphose, one by one, into bouquets of ice. The old river, normally so serious, is disguised as an icing sugar lake that stretches all the way to the sea.' Other descriptions too verge upon the breathtaking: '... the hoarfrost stitches sequins on to cats' bodies. The trees stretch their arms, like fat fairies in white nightshirts, yawning at the moon...'. Whilst the descriptions of both place and people are by turns lively and inventive, it did not seem to me as though the rest of Malzieu's writing quite stood up. It is when the narrative moves from Scotland to Spain that such descriptions start to suffer; they become relatively few and far between, and feel a little repetitive in what they pinpoint and express.

On initially viewing the dustjacket's design and reading the blurb, I would have thought that The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart would be a suitable book for a child to read. It seems not, however; there are several marked references to sex, and some quite coarse language at times too. One of the fundamental flaws of the novel for me was that it did not appear to know exactly what it wanted to be, and there was too much going on at some points, and not enough at others. It felt inconsistent, and did not hold my interest once its initial few chapters had passed. I had qualms with the modern feel of the dialogue, which did not fit with the chosen time period at all; the historical detail was also rather patchy, and there are a few clumsy mistakes to be found for the eagle-eyed reader.

There are certainly some interesting ideas at play here, and I particularly admired the inclusion of Georges Melies, a real-life figure whose playful short films I love. It did not quite come together in my opinion, however, and felt markedly peculiar. It was difficult to immerse myself within the story, and it certainly loses momentum at points due to its inconsistent pacing. The fairytale elements which are emphasised within the book's blurb are relatively non-existent. The translation was fluid, but regardless, I ended up disliking more about the novel than I liked. The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is what I imagine literary steampunk would be like; of marked interest to the right reader, but not really of appeal to this one. ...more

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Sep 17, 2017 Rubi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Una historia hermosa, con un final de vida real; está llena de bellas e ingeniosas metáforas que nos cuentan las búsqueda del amor por parte de Jack.
Muestra ambos extremos del amor: el delirio de la felicidad y las brumosa oscuridad del egoísmo con personajes que se quedan en tu corazón.
A beautiful story, with a real life ending; is full of beautiful and ingenious metaphors that tell us the Jacks search for love.
It shows both ends of love: the delirium of happiness and the hazy obsc ...more

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Dec 01, 2014 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, 2014-reads, own, ylto-monthly-challenge

Actual rating 3.5 stars.

This is quite a difficult book for me to rate and review. On the one hand, it was a quirky little fable with an intriguing central concept that had the potential to be both affecting and thought provoking. Some of the writing was beautiful and the story had some really charming moments peppered throughout. And don't even get me started on the cover! I mean, just look at it! However, despite these positive attributes, I can't help feeling that this book never q ...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Nikki rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, fantasy, steampunk

This book really annoyed me because it could've been quirky and sweet, and there were even some beautiful lines that I could cut out and keep, but the tone kept vacillating and throwing me out of the story. It never quite settled down to being humour, or a fairytale, or a serious work of fantasy, or... anything. I felt jerked around by it and just ended up resentful.

Also, if you read the blurb and think it might be a children's book, it definitely isn't that. It is an adult book, wit ...more

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Dec 31, 2017 L. rated it did not like it

I'd tell Malzieu to stick to music, but his music is god-awful and pretentious too.

Okay, that's harsh, but seriously. This book has a great premise and is based on a really cute music video. But the book is just plain bad. I read it in French, and then in English thinking I was missing something. I wasn't. The characters are boring, the story is boring. In the hands of someone who could write this might have been a good story. It is full of absolute French storytelling cliches (how m ...more

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Jul 12, 2010 Cecelia rated it it was ok

Expectations are funny things. They can influence almost any experience to a large extent – for example, they can make you more or less satisfied with a particular outcome, depending on what you anticipated. This is a major reason why I enter voluntary blackout when I’m waiting for an event, book or film. I don’t want to raise expectations and set myself up for disappointment. I was not tempted as a child to open my Christmas presents early. Santa was safe at our house (well, at least from me).< Expectations are funny things. They can influence almost any experience to a large extent – for example, they can make you more or less satisfied with a particular outcome, depending on what you anticipated. This is a major reason why I enter voluntary blackout when I’m waiting for an event, book or film. I don’t want to raise expectations and set myself up for disappointment. I was not tempted as a child to open my Christmas presents early. Santa was safe at our house (well, at least from me).

But even beyond setting expectations, when I believe a book fits in a particular category and then learn differently, I almost always have to step back, reevaluate and then tell myself to keep reading. To not to give up because it wasn’t what I wanted or thought I was getting. It may sound silly, but it’s an important system, because my brain is a funny place.

What to say? I expected a young adult novel, possibly a steampunk-influenced story, featuring a young man. I got instead an adult tale, an allegory of sorts, written mostly in a detached prose with moments of beauty and lyricism. These were contrasted with other moments of clunky description and obfuscation. The trouble is that I don’t know whether to attribute the text’s bipolar tendencies to bad translation or a confusing original text.

My favorite part of this little book was the characterization of Madeleine, the guardian and savior of the ‘Boy’ in the title. She is described with spare precision, her actions and words helping to create a picture of a strange woman who is able to craft and implant such a wondrous thing as a cuckoo-clock heart, and then to nourish the boy afterwards.

Unlike Madeleine, the rest of the book didn’t win me over. Jack did not feel much like a little boy or a young man, and the sudden love (lusting) at age ten shocked me a bit. Heck, let’s be honest: it surprised me right out of my good mood. Some of the other characters were interesting, but the reader wasn’t given enough time with them to feel anything beyond vague curiosity. I do wonder, though, if I had had different expectations going in if I would have appreciated the text to a greater extent.

After all that…I recommend this to: fans of Mathias Malzieu, and anyone who is still curious about a cuckoo-clock heart after reading my review. You’re hardy – and you’ll probably like the book! ...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Lauren (Northern Plunder) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-during-college, reviewed, 2011-book-challenge

My review was first posted on Northern Plunder, you can read more of my reviews there too.

Initially I had mixed feelings on how I felt about this book, but at my book club discussion I found out that it is actually a prequel for a different book that Mathias Malzieu has written and with that knowledge it has helped me realise exactly what I felt was wrong with the book.

Basically I can’t help but comment on how this book was a lovely read and completely well written, almost poetical in s ...more

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Mar 26, 2014 Laurie –A Court of Books– rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-french

I read this book in french and I really liked it. Mathias Malzieu is so poetic, his words struck me deep down.

"Firstly: don't touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. Secondly: master your anger. Thirdly: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more."

I haven't tried in English, but I guess that any translation can't worth the original book, that is why I always enforce myself to read books in ...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Jen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Tim Burton fans

A hurricane in a skirt named Miss Acacia, a pet hamster with a very naughty name, and a cameo appearance by Jack the Ripper make this a memorable book. In Mathias Malzieu's "The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart," Jack's damaged heart functions with the aid of a cuckoo-clock installed in his chest. But Jack must be careful, because anger or love will break the fragile mechanism. In spite of the risk to his life, he journeys from Edinburgh to Andalusia in search of his beloved Miss Acacia.
...more

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Nov 25, 2014 Mademoizelleflo (flowlessbooks) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: chick-lit

It's a really cute and well written story ( I don't know if this book is published in another language than French, though) !
This book is written with songs lyrics, and the songs actually exists, which is wonderful !
Mathis Malzieu is the leader of a French rock band called dyonisos and he created Jack as a little doppleganger.

Jack is this child which was born during a really cold night. So cold, that his heart stopped beating. Madeleine saved him by creating an artificial hear ...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Sue Smith rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

I'm being very generous when I give this 2 stars. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt that, because it's a 'translation', something is lost between the original and the translated version. Actually a lot is lost, but that may be neither here nor there. I still think that despite the loss of the subtlety of languages, one still has to have an ability to write in the first place. Mathias Malzieu doesn't have that. A singer he may be. Creative he may be. But a writer he is not. Least ways ...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Heather Brush rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It wasn't easy to read this story, for I have lived it. I adored it and hated it because that's what certain truths do to a person. The book is about love, loving too much, loving just enough, loving with abandon of fear, and what happens when you do. But what happens if you don't?

At times painful to experience, the truths in the text are full of understanding and present themselves with simplicity and a bit of disguise. Oh that we all had a cuckoo bird in our hearts to speak our love for us or ...more

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May 14, 2010 DeAnna Rigney rated it liked it

This book screams, “Make a movie out of me Tim Burton!” It is hard to describe, but is basically a fairy tale for grown-ups that doesn’t lose its ability to be imaginative and odd. The story begins on the coldest day of the world in Edinburgh, Scotland. A midwife named Doctor Madeleine has just delivered a baby named Jack. It is so cold when he is born, that his heart freezes. To save him, Madeleine, who is a bit of mad-scientist, grafts a cuckoo-clock to Jack's heart to start it beating. This m ...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Kira Miri rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-did-not-like

I thought this could be a good read, since part of the story was set in Edinburgh. How wrong I was. It is blatantly and purposelessly anachronistic (set in the 19th century, but with lots of references from our time), Americanized, and pointlessly farcical. It is also badly written, anti-feminist, and the plot does not seem to have a point to it at all. I could not sympathize with any of the characters: the narrator, a ten-year-old boy, meets this girl for the first time, and almost the first th ...more

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Mar 03, 2010 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/review...

“All love’s pleasures and joys are paid for one day with suffering.” Such is the daunting message conveyed in The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu. The deceptively whimsical book tells the story of a naïve and starry-eyed boy whose obsession with love breaks his already damaged heart. Rich prose, eccentric characters, and fantasy elements create a stunning presentation for a relatively simple plot. Though the author dazzles the senses with his lush storytelling, a gloo http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/review...

“All love’s pleasures and joys are paid for one day with suffering.” Such is the daunting message conveyed in The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu. The deceptively whimsical book tells the story of a naïve and starry-eyed boy whose obsession with love breaks his already damaged heart. Rich prose, eccentric characters, and fantasy elements create a stunning presentation for a relatively simple plot. Though the author dazzles the senses with his lush storytelling, a gloomy message lies at the heart of the story.

At once whimsical and gothic, the story is an adult fairy tale straight from a Tim Burton-esque universe. On the coldest day in the history of the world, an unwanted child is born in Victorian Edinburgh. Little Jack has a curious defect—he is born with a frozen heart. Dr. Madeleine, the alleged witch/midwife who delivers the boy from his destitute mother, mends his frail heart by grafting it to a cuckoo clock. Pitying the child, Madeleine adopts Jack as her own son.

A dark side surfaces as the story progresses. Concerned by the frailty of Jack’s heart and influenced by her own disappointments in life, Madeleine shelters him from the world below their wooden hilltop house. On his tenth birthday, Madeleine finally allows Jack an excursion into town—but not without warning. From birth, Madeleine tells Jack that love is dangerous for his mechanical heart. She instructs him, “Never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.”

Unsurprisingly, Jack instantly falls in love. He sees a young Spanish flamenco dancer named Acacia perform on stage and his cuckoo-clock heart noisily rattles in his chest. Jack’s fixation with Acacia drives the narrative forward. His obsession leads him on a journey across Europe to find the tiny dancer. When they finally and passionately unite, Jack learns a painful lesson about love and identity.

Malzieu, a French art-rock musician, injects a lyrical quality to his words. His distinct writing style relies heavily on elaborate metaphors and flowery prose, reading much like poetry. While this lends a sense of whimsy and emotion to the story, it straddles the line between emotional and melodramatic. Though beautifully conveyed, Jack’s sentiments and motivations never quite engage the reader, who is left feeling detached from the characters.

Jack’s delicate clock heart becomes a symbol for the boy’s whirlwind of emotions while growing from a boy to a man: love, desire, anger, regret. Oftentimes, Malzieu uses the clock as a thinly veiled allusion for Jack’s sexual awakening. Describing a dream of Acacia, Jack relates, “Gently, she starts licking my minute hand. She’s gathering my nectar; something clockwork starts whirring into action, and I’m not sure it’s just my heart… TICK-TOCK DING!” Malzieu depicts the relationship between Jack and Acacia as sexual and passionate, but never fully believable. What drives Jack’s obsession with Acacia? Is their love founded on more than physical attraction? If not, why are they both destroyed at the thought of losing one another? In a book so full of dreamy surrealism, the love story requires a hint of realism. Unfortunately, Malzieu focuses too much on creating an arty story than a convincing one.

Nonetheless, the author’s creativity and poetic style are enjoyable to read, and the emotion clearly shines through the words. The tragic ending may not have readers in tears for poor Jack, but the contrast between the enchanting story and heartbreaking moral will strike a chord with anyone who has experienced the tumult of love. ...more

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Jul 28, 2017 Lilian rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I wish I could give this book a higher rating but I just can't.

I picked this book up because its premise sounded really intriguing - a tragic story about a boy with a cuckoo-clock heart who is not allowed to fall in love but meets a girl who seems to be the love of his life? Sign me up!

It started out very promising: the writing style was beautiful, a great atmosphere was created and one sympathizes with the characters. But the further I got into the story, the more I got annoyed at I wish I could give this book a higher rating but I just can't.

I picked this book up because its premise sounded really intriguing - a tragic story about a boy with a cuckoo-clock heart who is not allowed to fall in love but meets a girl who seems to be the love of his life? Sign me up!

It started out very promising: the writing style was beautiful, a great atmosphere was created and one sympathizes with the characters. But the further I got into the story, the more I got annoyed at the writing style and the characters. The writing style started to sound very pretentious as if the author was trying too hard to let his words sound meaningful and poetic. This could also be an issue because of the original language that this book was written in. I talked to a friend of mine, whose father grew up in France, and she said that's just how the French language is. Still, it didn't change anything for my reading experience.

But let's move on to Jack: he started out as a cute little boy one feels pity for. That quickly changes though when he first lays eyes on Miss Acacia. If you don't enjoy instalove, you shouldn't read this because that's exactly what happens after Jack meets Acacia. His feelings were exaggerated and unfounded, often resulting in incomprehensible actions. What really bothered me is that his adoration/ love was almost exclusively based on Acacia's outward appearance. Even though Jack doesn't want to appear like a “skirtchaser“, he almost only mentions how pretty she is and how full and curvy her breast and bottom are. In general, this novel was surprisingly sexual. It actually made me really uncomfortable.
Because of the writing and the behavior and mindset of the characters, I couldn't form an emotional connection to the characters. I did not care one bit about what happened or was going to happen to them. Especially, because some characters and parts of the story seemed so random and felt like they weren't adding to the plot at all. The ending felt rushed and was unsatisfying.

One of the few things that I actually liked about this novel was its moral that our flaws make us unique and lovable.

All in all, this novel was an easy and fast but very frustrating read, which does not deserve the hype it got (at least in my opinion). ...more

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Sep 25, 2010 Roof Beam Reader (Adam) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu
Final Verdict: 3.5 out of 4.0
YTD: 53

Plot/Story:
4 – Plot/Story is interesting/believable and impactful

Malzieu’s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical tale of one boy’s struggle to love “normally” and not “crookedly.” The reader meets the boy, Jack, at birth, where a strange confluence of events results in his infant heart being fused with a cuckoo-clock, in what would be a 19th Century makeshift-p The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu
Final Verdict: 3.5 out of 4.0
YTD: 53

Plot/Story:
4 – Plot/Story is interesting/believable and impactful

Malzieu’s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical tale of one boy’s struggle to love “normally” and not “crookedly.” The reader meets the boy, Jack, at birth, where a strange confluence of events results in his infant heart being fused with a cuckoo-clock, in what would be a 19th Century makeshift-pacemaker. We ride along with him to witness his first encounter with Miss Acacia and his discovery of the idea of love (or perhaps, more correctly and eerily, a ten-year old boys discovery of “lust”) and how that love grows, painfully and tragically, over time. The story is told in the style of, perhaps, the Brothers Grimm or Lewis Carroll, a phantasmagorical-type whimsy which shares an innate fatalism as the likes of Hans Christian Andersen. The tale certainly bears more relationship to the original story of The Little Mermaid than it does to the Disney version, which means there is no happy ending – so do not be expecting one. When I say the prose was believable, I am not being literal in any sense. The story on its surface is completely bizarre, imperfect and, at times, hard to follow. Still, it is magical in the old-school sense of literary-wizardry. There is something of Cormier’s I am the Cheese in the looped and revelatory ending, coupled with the almost scary fantasy of Spenser’s epic tale, The Fairie Queene (referring largely to the employment of allegory and symbolism, and not to imply that this book is written in verse). The reader is led to believe, right up to the end, that Jack may finally get the girl and learn to live with his new heart but, alas, only one of these realities may come to pass. There is something truly great and real about this, though, and though we learn some disturbing things about Dr. Madeline, the witch-doctor who places that cuckoo-clock in Jack’s chest, we also can understand and appreciate her sad motivation.

Read the full review at http://roofbeamreader.com/2010/09/27/... ...more

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May 22, 2017 Dolly rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: young adults

Shelves: historical-fiction, france-french, audiobook, young-adult, read-but-not-finished-reviewing, scifi-fantasy, english, education-school, 2017, scotland-scottish

Featuring a chance meeting with Jack the Ripper, a beloved pet hamster named Cunnilingus, and an encounter with Georges Méliès, the quirky filmmaker featured in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, this is an odd, and often NSFW romance that will likely appeal to young adults.

The titular character is named Jack (not related to the aforementioned serial killer) and he survives a traumatic birth only through the mystical efforts of Dr. Madeleine, a highly suspect midwife who delivers the illegitimate children of pros ...more

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Sep 23, 2012 AnaΣtaΣia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Light some candles, put some instrumentals in the background and start reading this book and I'm sure that travelling towards its last chapters will make you want to drink a glass of cool wine or a cup of hot chocolate.
As soon as I read the title and saw the cover, I knew something interesting would ensue..and I was right. What a story! A combination of reality and make-belief results into a heart warming/breaking chronicle. This is not just a romantic story, this is the memoir of two people pa ...more

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Oct 02, 2016 Cloie Rainilla rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Nobody I Know

Shelves: own-it, romance, young-adult, steampunk

The movie was a lot better. I hardly recognised anything in this book, it was just so different. Different in a bad way too. Everything about this story made me sad.

Jack was born in Edinburgh, 1874, and with a frozen heart. His mother leaves him and the midwife, Madeleine gives him a cuckoo clock heart so that he can live. He remains there with the woman and she becomes his mother. Madeleine tells Jack three rules, so that he can continue to live with his odd little heart. "FIRSTLY: don’t touch ...more

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Mar 10, 2015 Andru rated it really liked it

okay so I gave this book 4 stars basically because I loved the way it was written but I have to say the book itself disappointed me a little.
Maybe it's because I am a little bit tired of the typical boy meets girl and they fall madly in love at first sight thing.

However, I liked the ending, I mean I would have done exactly the same as Miss Acacia. Probably what the author wanted was to show how dangerous love can be. Yes, love is powerful and beautiful but very few people actually write about ...more

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Very metaphorical spoilers	4	45	Mar 17, 2017 09:10AM
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About Mathias Malzieu

Mathias Malzieu

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Mathias Malzieu est une figure phare du rock français avec le groupe Dionysos, pour lequel il écrit, compose et interprète les chansons. Peu enclin à choisir entre sa vocation de chanteur et celle d’auteur, c’est tout naturellement qu’il décide de mêler les deux. Après un recueil de nouvelles, 38 mini westerns, et un roman, Maintenant qu’il fait tout le temps nuit sur toi, il connait un immense su ...more