Rachel's Reviews > The Wonder Engine

** spoiler alert ** 2.5. This was disappointing. The fantasy and horror elements were interesting, but the pacing was off (especially at the end) and I really didn’t like how the romance went.

I’m honestly not sure what Slate and Caliban saw in each other. Slate was physically attracted to Caliban against her better judgement, and she was often mean to him. Caliban just let Slate be mean and accepted everything as his fault, even when it wasn’t. At the end, after Brenner’s death, Slate throws all of Caliban’s things out of her room, yells at him, and then doesn’t talk to him for two weeks. And then she’s worried that Caliban might not love her anymore because of the whole thing with Brenner. It just doesn’t make sense that she’d use Caliban as a punching bag the whole journey, regularly refuse his help, threaten to slit his throat, throw his stuff out of her room, and completely stop talking to him, only to worry that he MIGHT'VE gotten the idea that she doesn’t like him or want anything to do with him. How the fuck else is he supposed to take all of that?!

It also seemed like Slate cut Brenner and Edmund a lot of slack, but then she’d get mad at Caliban for just existing. Was Caliban really an arrogant asshole, or was Slate just unreasonably peeved that someone was showing practicality and genuine concern for her well-being?

Slate had a lot of misplaced anger, fear, and frustration for the entire series (especially at the end), and basically all of this was taken out on Caliban. I get that not every couple is going to have a perfectly healthy, communicative relationship. And I’ve read and enjoyed books where the main couple is more than a little bit fucked up. But this ending seemed like Slate and Caliban were together because they didn’t want to be alone, and not because they were actually healthily in love with each other. This is one of the few romances I’ve read where I think the main couple would genuinely be better off without each other.

The ending felt bleak and hopeless - because of the romance, because of the way in which Brenner died, and because the found-family disbanded.

I will say, however, that the other Kingfisher books I’ve read don’t have this problem, so don’t let this negativity deter you from picking up another of her books that isn’t part of this duology.