The Finer Points of Becoming Machine Review

Title: The Finer Points of Becoming Machine

Author: Emily Andrews

Release Date: 23rd July 2009

Publisher: Ransom Publishing

Everyone wants to know why Emma tried to kill herself, but she’s not telling.

First she needs to confront her own past. And then her dad comes visiting.

Emma’s life hasn’t been easy. She had to deal with her dad’s abusive behaviour and it seems like this sent her life spiralling out of control. When her boyfriend ends their relationship, she feels there is nothing left in her life and attempts suicide. It takes this near miss for her to realise how much she doesn’t really want to die and the story follows her recovery in a mental institute. Dr X knows that Emma is hiding something, will he manage to get her to open up?

I chose this book because it is part of a series called Cutting Edge, ‘Gritty, quick reads for young adults’. I think this is a really good idea for people who want something quick to read and I thought the larger font size used was a really good idea –sometimes the font in novels can be just too small!  

The story begins with a young girl, Emma, who has attempted to commit suicide. While I realise this is a serious, hard hitting subject matter, I felt that the entire book was really miserable. There is little plot and the book mainly focuses on what is going on in Emma’s head. It reminded me slightly of Cut by Patricia McCormick, which is on the same lines but has much more plot (it is a brilliant book).

Originally I was confused by the title, The Finer Points of Becoming Machine, but it relates to Emma’s state of mind as she becomes a machine and no longer thinks in an emotional way. I liked this analogy but felt a lot more could have been made of this, especially as a build up to the ending. In fact, the ending is really good, Emma begins to try and deal with things in her own way but after she returns home, she realises everything has changed and her life will never be the same.

It is a strange and harrowing ending but also reveals Emma’s strength, she says ‘If I’m going to survive, I’d better power up’. This draws back on the machine idea but also shows a new feeling of determination which makes everything seem so much better, an almost happy ending to a miserable book.

The terms ‘quick’ and ‘gritty’ are definitely apparent in this book. However, despite the fact that was what I was looking for, I felt the story was maybe too quick and too gritty. The novel isn’t fast paced, in fact, in some places it is rather slow but I felt if this hadn’t have been written as a quick read the plot would have been more developed and more would have been written about some of the other characters such as Ricky, who seems like such a lovely guy! As for gritty, I felt thoroughly miserable while reading this book. That obviously reflects the power of the writing but because of this it wasn’t really for me.

2.5/5 For those who can handle something really quick and really gritty!