Ticker

by Lisa Mantchev

[Angie]

I absolutely love the cover and premise of Ticker, but sadly, the actual story is really boring and kind of confusing. Penny almost died, but she was saved when the doctor gave her a clockwork heart. It was just a prototype though, so it's starting to fail. Too bad that very doctor is on trial for a number of murders and can't exactly patch her up. Not that she'd want him to, since the man is completely mad and obsessed with correcting errors of the flesh. But then Penny's home and the family's safe are broken into, and she learns that the doctor is behind it after escaping prison. Of course, it's up to her (and a male acquaintance) to stop him.

Ticker has a lot of amazing ideas, but overall, I found the world building quite confusing. There's a lot of terms and names thrown around without much explanation. There are things that are pretty self explanatory given the context, but for many others, I just couldn't figure out how they worked or how they looked. For example, there's these awesome devices known as RiPAs. They're like Steampunk cellphones, except I have no clue what they look like or how they send/receive messages despite Penny always using hers! At first it seemed like she just has it strapped to her garter and it uses something like Morse code, since she always "taps out" a message, and never seems to reach for it when sending/receiving a message. But then there's a larger version of one somewhere which displays text (144 characters to be exact), so I just didn't get it, even though it was a super cool idea! But back to the point, a lot of the people, places, and things aren't described well enough for me to understand the world.

The plot of Ticker was alright. Penny and company are trying to rescue her kidnapped parents and put a stop to the mad doctor, but I never felt any excitement or tension. Stuff is just happening. I was also really annoyed with Penny since she mentions that her heart is going to give out at any moment, and yet she continues to engage in activities that put a strain on her heart until someone is like "Hey, are you okay? Maybe you should stop." Why doesn't she just stop on her own or ask for help? It's not like it's any secret that her clockwork heart is failing. Or she could, ya know, go see the doctor who wants to fix it for her. I know he's crazy, but let him fix it! Incapacitate him, and then take your parents back! Duh!

Ticker just didn't work for me. I wanted to love it, but between the boring plot and confusing terminology for everything, I just couldn't get into it.

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