Whoof, that’s a mouthful of a title.
Today, from Christopher Healy of The Hero’s Guide, we have the first in a trilogy set in 1800’s New York, smack dab in the Era of Invention.
It’s 1883—the Age of Invention! A time when great men like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Nicola Tesla, and George Eastman work to turn the country into a land of limitless opportunity.
And it all happens at the world famous Inventor’s Guild headquarters in New York City—a place where a great idea, a lot of hard work, and a little bit of luck can find you rubbing elbows with these gods of industry who will usher humanity into the future.
Unless, of course, you’re a woman.
Molly Pepper, daughter of brilliant but unknown inventor Cassandra Pepper, lives with her mother in New York. By day, they make ends meet running a pickle shop; but by night, they toil and dream of Cassandra taking her place among the most famous inventors in America.
In an attempt to find a way to exhibit Cass’s work at the World’s Fair, they break into the Inventor’s Guild, where they discover a mysterious plot to destroy New York.
The evidence points to the involvement of one of the world’s most famous inventors, and now it’s up to Molly, Cassandra, and a shop hand named Emmett Lee to uncover the truth—even if no one will ever know it was they who did it.
It’s fun, whimsical, and clean — though there is some commentary on the racism and sexism of the time that’s a bit in the line of outright propaganda. As if, being of their time and culture, living in their time and culture, somehow the heroes would say, with the words of modern activists, that viewing Chinese immigrants as lesser is wrong. Or, on the flip side, assuming that if all the inventors like Bell, Edison, and the rest teamed up to create an inventing guild, they’d automatically exclude women ‘just because.’
It’s funny, just like the other Healy stuff, but kinda disappointing. The later books weren’t very satisfying and felt like add-ons.
There is one instance of the Lord’s name used in vain. Other than that, for all other content it’s pretty clean, unless you’re uncomfortable with some jokes about bloomers and corsets. I just wish Healy wouldn’t harp on yesterday’s problems like they’re today’s.
If you’re looking for a fine little romp for a reader who likes the era, this is fine. But it’s probably not the first book I’d send a kid to when they’re looking for historical accuracy and depth, because this book takes creative liberties with the historical characters – and of course, it’s upfront with that. It’s a what-if scenario, for fun.
All in all, I’d call this popcorn fiction. But if you’ve got a ravenous reader on your hands, then this might be worth checking out from the library to keep them busy. It’s certainly not as good as Healy’s Hero’s Guide series, disappointingly. Still, it might be a decent romp for readers who are too young to be affected by the propaganda, or old enough to ignore it.
I wish I could always be reviewing just good books, but I also need to write about the bad, so other people can know. The amount of times I’ve googled a book to see if there’s any content in it I want to avoid, and found nothing coming at it from my Christian perspective, is rather depressing. The only somewhat-comprehensive book content warning sites out there are to help people avoid ‘triggers’ like ‘misogyny,’ ‘sexism,’ and ‘animal death.’ I’ve actually contemplated building my own site several times — something along the lines of KidsInMind but for books. Certain types of content would get assigned a numerical score (ie, 3 points for a d– word or something like that) and then one could simply add up the score at the end and get an idea of the amount and frequency of language, violence, and sex. I’d also do a overview or list of the content, in the same way as KidsInMind, with detail on some more book-specific things like how graphically or evocatively things are described, or a count of all the language used in proportion to a book of so many pages.
Of course, the startup costs would not be cheap. And it would take time I do not currently have with a full-time job. But maybe someday it can be a side hustle (in my dreams, I do that alongside being an author, but we shall see what the Lord’s plan is.) Nonetheless, I bring this up to both express my aims (trying to be a thermostat but sometimes a thermometer is useful) and to gauge interest. Could you see yourself using a site like this? Leave a note in the comments, I’d love to know.
Well, that’s all for now, folks.
Keep shining!
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