Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

E: The Lock-Eater

The Lock-Eater by Zack Loran Clark.

Quick synopsis: An orphan girl goes on adventures with her magical-robot friend. They try to save people, sometimes succeed, and in the end both learn what's really important in life.

Brief opinion: This is an author I love. The story was great, characters were great, lessons were wonderfully subtle, everything was good... but for some reason the book was never able to hold my attention. I have no idea why.

Plot: Melanie Gate is an orphan. She lives in a home with a dozen or so other orphaned girls, one matron, and one cat. The story's opening line:

Nearly everyone at the Merrytrails Orphanage for Girls agreed: Abraxas was not a good cat.

During a stormy night a gearling (magical robot, sort of) arrives at their door to adopt an apprentice for the witch he serves. Melanie, who always has odd (magical) things happening around her, is selected. Off the two go into the night.

The pair travel from city to city, meeting other races that live in the story's country (cat people, frog people, good people, evil people, different kinds of magical people).

Eventually things come to a head with the evil leader of the government's magical group.

The first line of the final chapter made me smile:

Nearly everyone at the Merrytrails School for Magic agreed: Abraxas was a good cat.

Writing/editing: Both were perfect. This author has a great sense of description. Describing Abraxas's yowling:

His voice was like a mournful young soprano with a rock in her mouth, trapped inside a bucket.

I liked how the occasional words from the in-world language seemed like German words though sometimes spelled phonetically by an English speaker. That made them seem both foreign and yet understandable (common German words, like strass for street and licht for light).

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I at least liked, if not loved, everything about this book except one thing: The book's title just didn't work for me. It was explained in a line or two within the story, and I suspect the author thought it was unique enough that it would get attention, but based on the title alone this book sat on my Kindle for years, sinking lower and lower and lower. But that's a minor thing, and perhaps others like it.

I love that the lessons were subtle. For example one character said:

"We're both still figuring out who we are. Don't let the cruelest people you meet decide that for you."

Also there was a lot of LGBT stuff, but there was never notice made of it -- it was just as normal in the story's world as straight relations. That was really nice.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Okay. I wish I could rate it higher. Everything about it was good, it just hadn't held my attention. Maybe it was a me-issue and not a book issue?