Mechanica (Betsy Cornwell)

Author Biography

Betsy Cornwell has written two YA fantasy novels, served as columnist and editor at Teen Ink, and taught multiple subjects at Notre Dame. She currently lives in Ireland.

Published By: Clarion Books

Year: 2015

ISBN: 978-0-547-92771-8

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up

Reader’s Annotation:

In this steampunk “Cinderella” retelling, mistreated stepdaughter Nick secretly hones her mechanical skills in her mother’s workshop. With the help of good friends and a little magic, will she invent her own happily ever after?

Plot Summary:

As a child, Nicolette Lampton learned to build all types of mechanical devices from her master inventor mother. But now that her parents are both dead, she lives as a servant to her cruel stepmother Lady Halving and stepsisters Piety and Chastity. Then, at age sixteen, she discovers her mother’s secret workshop. There she finds remarkable creations, chief among them a tiny clockwork horse named Jules. They assist her in her chores and help her develop inventions of her own, which she dreams of displaying at the royal Cultural Exposition Gala. But when the “Steps” discover her inventions, they destroy them, smash her beloved Jules to pieces, and give her the mocking nickname “Mechanica.”

Then hope appears in the form of two new friends, Caro and Fin. In secret they help Nick to continue her work, sell her creations and encourage her to attend the Exposition. They also encourage her use of Fey magic from the oppressed colony of Faerie. Magic banned by the king, but used by Nick’s mother in her inventions, and which might help Nick to build not only machines, but a new life.

Critical Evaluation:

This pseudo-Victorian steampunk “Cinderella,” which reimagines the iconic fairy tale heroine as an inventor of mechanical marvels, is a multilayered gem. For starters, every collector of cross-cultural “Cinderella” stories will find a multitude of “Easter eggs.” Author Cornwell draws inspiration not only from the classic Perrault and Grimm versions, but also from the Disney film (Nick’s menagerie of clockwork insects fill the role of Disney’s mice and birds) and even the Chinese tale of Ye Xian (Jules, the mechanical horse, corresponds neatly to that story's doomed magic fish). She also sprinkles in allusions to Ever After, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, and other variations. But all these inspirations blend together in a unique whole, set in a world of magnificent clockwork creations, and with an intriguing portrait of fairies as a persecuted minority race, a la the dragons in Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina, with not only magic but their own rich culture as well.

Yet this is mere backdrop (which a future sequel will hopefully explore in more depth) for the personal journey of Nick. A fiercely independent mechanical genius who literally becomes her own fairy godmother, building her own carriage, blowing the glass for her slippers with a machine she invented, and accepting help from friends and magic but letting no one else shape her future. Her night at the ball comes to a poignantly different end than expected, but she learns that heartbreak is survivable, that friendship is as valuable a form of love as romance, and that she doesn’t need a prince for her "fairy tale" to have a happy ending. With feminism, an eye for diversity (slim and chubby girls alike are called beautiful; nor are the characters exclusively white), endearing characterizations, vivid world-building and clever “playing” with the Cinderella archetype, Mechanica is a retelling that no teenage fantasy lover should pass by.

Curriculum Ties:

*Fairy tale retellings

*Feminism

Challenge Issues:

*Violence

*Child abuse

*Mild profanity

*Illegitimate birth references

Why This Book?

Of the array of YA “Cinderella” retellings available, this sparkling steampunk variation is easily one of the best.