Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.79 Stars It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School. Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education. (goodreads.com) Admittedly, this book was rather difficult for me to get into, but part of that is because I’ve never read anything steampunk before and I was thoroughly confused for a while. Once I got some of it sorted out I really started to enjoy the book. I love the setting and the characters and the simple, but exciting plot. The main character, Sophronia, is a trifle annoying at the get go, but as the story progressed I came to like her quite a lot, and more than many of the YA heroines I’ve read about lately. She’s funny, clever, and inventive. If you read more of the series, which I highly recommend doing, she gets even more likeable as she ages (like cheese… I guess - I’m not an expert on cheese). Along with an interesting and eclectic cast of characters (one of my favorites being Prof. Braithwope, who should be played by Martin Freeman - with a mustache - should there ever be a movie), Sophronia goes on a set of adventures throughout the series that leaves you giggling and sitting on the edge of your seat. The plot was kind of simple, but considering I was already trying to figure out the rules of steampunk, it was kind of nice not to have to think too hard about motives and machinations. As the series goes on I’ve found that the plot thickens, but so does the amount of steam-powered oddities, so occasionally it’s more than I can wrap my head around. Although at times it seems somewhat childish, and it makes it hard to really immerse yourself in the book, I like the writing style of this book. It’s fun to read and witty. It feels sort of like talking to a fancy person of long ago. On a random note, I really like the cover as well. However, that model does not look anywhere near fourteen years old. She, in fact, resembles Keira Knightley a great deal, and Ms. Knightley is thirty-one at the moment. But it is a very nice cover and I find it quite aesthetically pleasing. I’ve yet to read the fourth book of this series, but two and three just added to the wonderfulness of this book. I highly recommend to pretty much every single person on the planet. I know the author has a couple of other series out that take place in the same universe as this one, but I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. Although, I did start one of them… but I had to put it down because I was having hangover feels from another book. Charming read, wot wot! I hope you thought the same of my review and that you’ll leave me a comment telling me what you think. I loved this book (after I started getting the general idea of steampunk) and if you read it I hope you love it too. Thanks for stopping by! Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10874177-etiquette-espionage
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|