The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

A strange and interesting book. I read a few reviews before reading this and inadvertently learned some major plot points, so I'm going to be generous with spoiler tags, but not spoil anything too major.

But I think most of the people who see my reviews are interested in reading queer romance, and this book does have an m/m romance and some other romantic plot elements, including m/f. There's more going on in the book, but in the end, it did feel primarily like a romance novel to me.

I can imagine a lot of different opinions on Grace. I really hated her. I have heard people say that readers are much more forgiving of male characters than of female characters, so that was on my mind. But honestly, I saw her as a sociopath. I don't know if readers are supposed to sympathize with her, but I didn't. It's established early on that she has a major "I'm not like other girls" chip on her shoulder, which I thought was annoying, but not enough to make me hate her. But over the course of the novel, she had no real empathy for anyone. For a mild example, here are her thoughts about her love interest, Matsumoto:Yuki had scowled at first, but he was talking now, and Matsumoto showed no sign of stopping him. He was enjoying having tamed somebody. She is a cold manipulator and she sees everyone around her as being the same.The novel moves along at a good pace and her chapters didn't drag. I was rolling my eyes at her a lot, though. I think she's the villain of the story, the kind of villain who believes she's doing the right thing for everyone, when really she's only serving herself.

I loved all the other characters, though. The writing style is lyrical, which I don't much enjoy, but the author's word choices were often unusual in an interesting way. I found the ending satisfying as a romance reader, and the author wrapped up the other plot threads well enough, too. I see this is book one of a series; although I can't imagine where it will go, I'm interested to find out.

The plot of this book is really all over the place. It starts with a bomb and you think, this must be some sort of mystery-solving story. But then that part is basically forgotten about completely as you get to know Mori. His character is very well done in general and the way he has a sort of reverse Alzheimers is very beautiful and sad. I have no clue what the point of Grace was, she is like the most hypocritical person ever. 

I loved the way it was less of a story with a set up, climax and ending and more of an exploration of the characters and their connections. Especially Mori and his abilities. I will definitely be reading the next book even though this isn't usually my kind of story. The fact that its queer certainly helps. 

I put this on my TBR purely because I enjoyed the whimsy of the title. A perfectly serviceable read that built slowly-but-steadily but I feel like the author made me promises she didn't deliver on, details of which I have handily listed in point form in the following spoiler tags.

What was the point of Grace? As a foil for Thaniel to question his loyalty? He never doubted Mori for very long, no matter who questioned him.Why did she have to infodump about how ether worked if it didn't relate to any other part of the story in any way?Why did Matsumoto hate Mori? It was nice of Pulley to give Grace a friend/love interest but since she served so little purpose, he served even less.

Ich liebe die Kombi von historischen Büchern mit so Kuriositäten und dieses Buch hat das perfekt umgesetzt. Ich finde es außerdem ziemlich cool wie die Idee von Wahrsagen hier umgesetzt wird, also zum Beispiel auch dass man die Zukunft vergessen kann. Die meisten Personen sind liebenswert, und ich war von der Romance positiv überrascht

3/5 stars

You can skip one at least that's how I personally feel. The first chapter did little to capture my attention. Although this felt like it was marketed towards people who like Sherlock Holmes I felt as if there was no plot half the time. The little plot there felt confusing.
I didn't feel like I cared enough about the characters that were present either. Maybe rereading it at a later time will help but I don't think my rating will change.

I do not like this book. It lured me in with promises of clockwork bombings, wooed me with soft stories of clerks, watchmakers and scientists, and then sucker punched me with an emotional roller coaster. This is not healthy and I do not appreciate it.

In all seriousness, though, this book is lovely and amazing and I adore it.

Things I love:

- All the characters. They are all well-developed and while I might personally disagree with some of their choices (coughGracecough) they all make sense and are, in spite of certain things, a lovely, fascinating bunch.

- Thaniel. Yes, he gets his own mention. As our main, leading character, he's so wonderful. He's a calm person and would be just wonderful to have tea with.

- The writing style. I actually took note of the writing this time and it is so great! It's evocative and very deliberate.

- The setting. Look, I love the historical/steampunk stuff, and there is such a sense of time and place in this book that it's glorious.

- Katsu. A clockwork octopus. Enough said.

Now, I'm off to hopefully find if my library has the sequel.

Atmospheric, superb writing with fantastic revelations and little heartbreaks—details like the accent change are quietly devastating. It's at times smart and unpredictable, but can feel like it's lacking momentum in some places; not so much because of the pacing, which felt deliberate, and more because of how there's not much discernible plot and how it's about things happening to Thaniel, not the other way around.

(However, the Japanese parts can sometimes be wonky: maybe I'm just bad at learning Japanese, but I doubt things like syntax are something you can just pick up from a Japanese-English dictionary that quickly.)