Etiquette & Espionage
Ratings90
Average rating3.8
Gail Carriger is back!
The Finishing School series is set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, only 20 years earlier. We follow 14-year-old Sophronia Temminnick (don't you love that name?) through her first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing School, where she learns to finish... everything.
I adored the writing, Gail's quick wit and humor are fantastic, the characters are lovable and get themselves into exceedingly ridiculous situations. There are new gimmicks and old friends, there are mechanimals and eyelash fluttering classes. Whether you know Gail Carriger's writing or not, pick this up. It's a lot of fun.
My full review can be found at SFF Book Review.
this is a great addition to the parasol protectorate series. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
A laugh-out-loud funny, yet really quite gripping story of a young Victorian lady who is sent to finishing school to stop her from being a tomboy. Unfortunately for her mother this turns out to be the wrong sort of “finishing” - it's a school for young spies and assassins. Of course a mystery is stumbled across and much adventure is had by all.
Best enjoyed with a nice pot of tea.
I adored this book, thank you Lady Carriger! You are a lady and scholar!
I really enjoyed this one. Sophronia is an interesting character. I love the humour as always.
A quick and fun fantasy-steampunk read. A little light-weight perhaps and some of the characters require serious suspension of disbelief. But hey, who doesn't like oddball schools, airships, steam-driven robots, werewolves, vampires, conspiracies, and lots of action.
3.2 stars.
Pros: fun, quirky characters, quick moving plot, historical tidbits added, good inclusion of a dark skinned supporting cast member that kept to historical conventions without being racist
Cons: the ending is too sudden (and too soon!)
For Parents: minor violence
Sophronia's antics have given cause for her to be sent to a finishing school. But what her proper mother doesn't realize is that Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy teaches more than just which spoon to use for soup. It also teaches skills in espionage. And Sophronia's first lesson comes when the carriage she and two fellow students are taking to the school is attacked by flywaymen looking for a prototype in the possession of one of the passengers...
The book is a fun romp, with quirky characters and a quick plot. The school is located in an unusual place that makes for a wonderful setting and the mischief Sophronia and her classmates get into trying to figure out what the prototype is and where it's been hidden, is great.
I was a bit concerned by the opening as Sophronia is VERY over the top, but the plot quickly requires it and she never got on my nerves. Nor did any of the other quirky characters.
It was impressive how the author added Phineas B. Crow, aka Soap, to the cast. Sophronia knows it's improper for her to associate with someone of a lower class - and a boy to boot, but she doesn't care about that, or the dark colour of his skin. She's simply curious about him and the world at large.
The ending came too suddenly, and much too soon, for me. I can't wait to see what other adventures Sophronia and her friends get up to.
listened to this with my 9-year-old while driving. We laughed a lot and really enjoyed it. when we finished I immediately bought the next in the series and we jumped right in.
Not as great as the Parasol Protectorate series, but still a fairly fun read.
How was this book so good?
Okay, this was another read outside my wheelhouse on purpose. Come on? A 19th century steampunk story about a group of girls shipped off to boarding school to (auspiciously) perfect their manners and fashion sense. When, in fact, they are learning deception, assassination, theft, poison, etc. . . how could this be bad?! Well, it wasn't. It was wicked good fun.
The principle character is a 14-year-old girl with more to offer than even she knows. The setting and plot were entirely age appropriate. The fact that it's set in the late 1800's only adds to the skillful layer of censorship the author achieves for the audience. The most offensive term I heard was “cleavage” and it was only used once or twice. Typically, the euphamism of choice was “decolletage.” That lind of thing happened all the time and was totally impressive.
I would recommend this widely. Especially to the YA/Pre-teen female reader who wants a classy, fun, and strong female lead experience.
This young adult steampunk is silly, clever and overall just a lot of fun. If you appreciate Victorian manners, fisticuffs, mechanical sausage dogs and an evil genius training school with levels including “discourteous” and “spiteful” this is the series for you.
El steampunk me da mala espina, especialmente si el protagonista es una mujer. Me ha pasado de quemarme con romances JA pero con engranajes pegados encima. Cuando vi que este libro también tenía vampiros y hombres lobos pensé que iba a ser triángulo amoroso con engranajes pegados encima. Por suerte fui gratamente sorprendida.
En Etiqueta y Espionaje seguimos a Sophronia, una niña de 14 años (la primer pista de que no iba a ser un romance) de una familia de clase alta que es obligada a ir a una escuela para señoritas. Lo que ni ella ni la madre saben, es que en esa escuela no entrenan sólo en cuestiones de etiqueta sino también en espionaje (de ahí el nombre del libro) Los elementos de steampunk están muy bien emparejados en la construcción del mundo, los personajes tienen un buen desarrollo a lo largo del libro y la trama es autoconclusiva pero con suficientes enganches para seguir leyendo los siguientes. Le doy 3.5/5 porque estuvo bien, pero no me voló la cabeza.
Visit my blog, Pages of Starlight, for more reviews.
This is Ms. Carriger's YA debut novel set in the same universe as her Parasol Protectorate series. As a fan of those books, it seemed only natural that I would read this one. Besides, look at that cover. It's just gorgeous. I especially love the pink gear and floral patterned wallpaper in the background - and I'm not even fond of pink.
As this book takes place in an already established universe, not much time is taken to set up the world. For readers of PP, that is doubtlessly a good thing. For the rest... Some of the reveals might seem a little out of left field.
The book starts off with Sophronia in the midst of a small disaster, something that is alluded to happening often. The story then rushes at full speed through Sophronia getting shipped off to finishing school and, honestly, the book never really takes a breather.
At this point, I was going to defend the book, mentioning its short length. But, really, there's no reason that this book couldn't have been fleshed out more. The setting - rather, the school - wasn't explored very well. The classes were almost non-existent. The characters, while charming, were charming archetypes with little in the way of dynamism.
I can only hope that this is rectified with later books in the series. (I do remember feeling much the same after I read the first PP novel.)
Sophronia is a delight. She's witty, thinks on her feet and isn't about to let convention of the times stop her. As brilliant as I thought she was, it was a mixed blessing and curse for the story to be told entirely from her view point. While this book wasn't (thank the stars) told in first person, but in third, I felt as though I would have liked spending time with the other characters to the story. Because they were all interesting to. Nothing like our dear Sophronia, (writing that name out is giving my works word processor fits...) it's true, but I feel that would have helped them get fleshed out.
There were also, much to my amusement, cameos from several PP characters as this book takes place years before the events told in that series. I won't give it away, but they were enough of characters in this book that I doubt anyone would feel at sea with their characters if they hadn't read PP.
To be fair, there really wasn't much of a plot. It read kind of like a novelization of a Hollywood movie. It was fast paced with quite a lot of action, Ms. Carriger's wonderful trademark humor and an imaginative setting. However, the plot was so barebones that at times it felt nonexistent.
This is where the titular ‘Espionage' comes in and it felt a bit like a James Bond send up. That was merely alright with me as I'm not a fan of spy stories - I like them in theory but in practice, I can't help but be disappointed. For most of the book, the searching for this mysterious ‘prototype' took a backseat to Sophronia getting acclimated to school life. (I would have loved to seen the school itself more fleshed out as well. The idea behind it was one that I just loved.)
I look forward to seeing the characters grow and develop, as I know Ms. Carriger can do, and hope that the next in the series spends more time with little things that develop the characters and setting. I did enjoy this book, but it wasn't particularly memorable - mostly a decent first book in a new series that I hope doesn't let me down.