Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 4.18 Stars Content Rating: Light PG-13 Trigger Warnings: Racism, misogyny, character has panic attacks Floss is most definitely NOT marrying the Goblin King, even if it saves her a trip through the labyrinth. Floss, an aspiring law student, has enough troubles to ruffle anyone’s bustle. Her school of choice won’t let her in because of her gender, her equal rights league is hopelessly ineffective, and there aren’t enough calming tonics in the world to stave off her panic attacks. Now her niece is missing, the roguish Goblin King keeps proposing, and sinister forces threaten Floss’s city. She’ll have to brave a dangerous labyrinth and question everything she believes in to save not only her family, but an entire kingdom down below. If only the Goblin King wasn’t quite so distracting, she might actually be able to do it. (goodreads.com) As always, we must take a moment to behold a pretty cover. I love the pink! It sort of makes me think of the covers of old Barbie movies, which is a spectacular vibe. Now, if you read the description and if you’ve ever seen Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, you may be noticing some similarities between this book and that movie. And I think this book was inspired by Labyrinth (though I can find no information to back that up) or perhaps started as a fanfiction, but I can assure you the vibes are fairly distinct from one another. Though, I suppose they are the same enough that it would still interest someone who might be looking for a book “like Labyrinth”. As we get into this review, I fear that I might have several negative things to say, so I want to start out by saying that I did really enjoy reading it. Easy to get into, interesting world building, cute romance, female friendships, a dashing goblin king—all very fun to read and I liked it quite a bit. However, no matter how much of a good time I had while reading it, I also felt a persistent feeling of “hmm… that doesn’t seem quite right”. As well as a few other little things that bothered me. Let’s get into it, shall we? First off, the romance. It was cute. It was fun. The male main character was the king of a magical realm and a gentleman with a penchant for mischief. What could possibly go wrong with that? Well, for the most part the king was completely fine as a love interest (I was not expecting him to turn into a giant green creature that I could only picture as the Hulk, but you know, some people are into that so whatevs). It was Floss that I took most issue with. Floss was so… law abiding. Literally that’s one of her main character traits. She wants to be a lawyer and follow the law precisely. Which is fine, but it also meant that she was sort of naïve and ignorant of problems in her world. She is part of a group that protests for equal rights for women and magical creatures, but she is woefully uneducated about the plights of those magical creatures. It’s frustrating because she wants to do what is right, but she also won’t acknowledge when she is not doing what’s right. It reminds me very much of a well meaning woman of privilege who only sees her own problems and is insensitive to the injustices against minorities even as she speaks up for them. Like, she’s fighting for her equal rights and since she’s friends with magical creatures, she’ll tag their rights on too. That was another thing that bothered me. Equating magical creatures to real life minorities who are facing injustice is always a tricky thing to write. Because much of the time it starts to feel like mockery of real people, or saying that real people who face discrimination are “not human”. I’m just not sure that it’s the best idea to say that historically people of color faced the same problems as fairies. I suppose there are instances where it can be done well, but this book’s attempt at handling “magical social justice” left me feeling uncomfortable. Another irritation I have with Floss was that her motive for being such a rule follower was because of something bad she’d done in her past. And I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s trauma, but when you find out what the horribly wicked thing is that she did… it’s not really all that bad. I don’t even really understand why she did it apart from the fact that she was a child and children do stupid things. And when this big horrible thing is revealed to her sister, who was affected by the big horrible thing, Floss is immediately forgiven and faces no consequences, making me feel that it wasn’t really necessary to the plot. It seemed like it was put in as background information about Floss, supposedly telling us why she wants to be a lawyer. But the thing is, the reader is already told at the very beginning of the book what her motivations are and they seem perfectly believable. So I don’t really know why a second reason was necessary. I don’t want to spoil too much of the book or harp on it endlessly, but I also just want to mention that the conflict is resolved astoundingly easily. Sure, there is a whole journey through a labyrinth to get through, but once that is done then everything sort of just falls into place with minimal bumps in the road. The antagonist causes a little bit of drama, but other than that, everything is worked out super easily. This would have been fine, because by the end of the book I was more interested to see the resolution to the romance. However, a redundant amount of time was spent on sorting out the main conflict instead (which, as mentioned, practically solved itself anyway). The romance is sorted out with a teeny tiny epilogue that felt somewhat unsatisfactory. I liked Floss and the goblin king as a couple, I wanted to see more of their relationship once the labyrinth business was sorted. Also, brief note: one of the goblin kingdom’s major problems was solved by the tourism industry. The problem created by imperialism was solved with tourism. And that just seems… I don’t know, maybe too close to real history for many places. Especially because the citizens of the goblin kingdom seem quite averse to outsiders (which Floss knows when she suggests the “solution” of tourism) and they don’t really want further intrusion from the oppressive empire. You probably wouldn’t believe it from all of the critiques I just mentioned, but I did genuinely enjoy reading this book. The magic was fun, the writing voice was comedic, but not overly so, the characters were, for the most part, interesting. There were just certain aspects that I felt were not as good as they could have been. It is hard to praise the features of the book that I really liked when they are so entangled with potentially problematic pieces. All of that being said, I do want to read the next book in this series when it is released as well as the novella (only available as an ebook currently) that is already out. If I do, I will try to post another review and we’ll see if things improve for the world of “Lady Primrose Presents”. Thank you for reading this review, I’m off to run the labyrinth to get my cat back. I’m sure that’s where she goes when I can’t find her. TTFN! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60210872-how-to-train-your-goblin-king
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I have to admit, this one was a little bit of a let down, but there was still some fun stuff. Also, I wanted to note that, since I've made this video, LitJoy Crate has announced the end of their YA subscription box as it is now. They will be changing it so that you can personalize your box and it will be called To Bee Read (the logo is really cool). They don't have much public information about it at this time and I only know because I get their newsletters, but if that is something that sounds interesting to you, keep an eye on their website! Spoilers for Steampunk and Petticoats box: 🕰️Book: My Imaginary Mary by Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, and Cynthia Hand 🕰️Android Repair office supply kit from Cinder by Marissa Meyer 🕰️Frankenstein book tin designed by @carellafra_art 🕰️Discovery of Witches storybook key 🕰️Through the Wardrobe bookplates inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis 🕰️Peter Pan "Big Ben" pin designed by @carellafra_art 🕰️Adventure card from The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazaelwood designed by @sophia_volovik 🕰️Mystery signed book plate? Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating (as of a week after book’s release): 3.68 Stars Content Rating: R (for disturbing violence) Trigger Warnings: Racism, torture, SO MUCH VIOLENCE, mentions of suicide. As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly a strange sight for leering British audiences, always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture… She cannot die. Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t. To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is. If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten. (goodreads.com) First off, I won an ARC of this in a Goodreads giveaway, so thank you to the publisher and to Goodreads. Secondly, LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS COVER! Oh my goodness, I love this cover so much. I mean, I adore any cover with a girl with swords on the front (who doesn’t?) but make that girl wearing a fabulous tutu while tightrope walking over a blazing city? That’s pretty darn cool, man. Apart from the lovely cover, the writing of this book really draws you in right away. I had plans to read something else before this book, but I happened to read the first few sentences of the first page and then suddenly it was midnight and I was five chapters in. Because it is such a long book (almost 500 pages) there were points that lulled a bit and the momentum slowed to a point where I would put the book down and not pick it up again for a while, but usually it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things. This is definitely an action packed book. Some of the action was a little hard to follow at times, leaving me confused as to what just happened, but usually by the end of the chapter things were made clear. Although I ultimately understood what was happening in the book, there were small pieces that seemed to contradict themselves or just weren’t written super clearly and made it difficult to understand what was happening. Again, these things cleared themselves up for the most part, but there are still a few instances that left me confused. One such part was a point where the MC, Iris, was given a ribbon by a friend, but then it seemed like another character exploded that ribbon, but then she had it again in the next chapter. Maybe they were two different ribbons? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of was how incredibly violent this book was. Goodness gracious. Let me just lay it out for you: there’s a cannibal in this book. And the “mealtimes” are described in vivid detail. Usually books aren’t graphic enough that images linger in my mind, but there is one scene in particular that I’m pretty sure is going to haunt me forever. I’m still cringing thinking about it. I don’t advise eating anything while reading the fight scenes. I don’t care if it’s saltine crackers. The grisly details will upset your stomach even if you aren’t eating and haven’t eaten for hours. I literally shuddered every time this character showed up. There were other aspects of this book that were violent too. The other most upsetting violence was done by a scientist performing inhumane experiments. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but the way this scientist treats other characters, particularly those of color, is pretty much just as horrific as what the cannibal does except he doesn’t eat flesh. If this book doesn’t give me nightmares I’ll be surprised. But enough about the gore. Let’s talk about some positives, eh? I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book hosts a full cast of super-powered characters. If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for superhero-esque plotlines. Especially when there are so many fun powers! You may be asking, what kind of superpowers are in this book (Well, we got everything nowadays. We got a guy who jumps, we got a guy who swings, we got a guy who crawls up the walls. You gotta be more specific.) and the answer to that is pretty much all of the wacky and wonderful ones. You don’t really have your usual super-strength, flight, superspeed things. It’s more like X-men style powers with shapeshifters, portal-makers, and fire breathers. Iris, apart from her undying-ness, was also a tight-rope walker by trade and I wish that had been brought up more in the story. There were a few minor parts where her skills came in handy, but not nearly enough. I would have loved to see her have to walk a tightrope to further the plot, or at least have more references to the circus that was mostly just at the beginning of the book. I also liked how the secrets of the story were revealed. Sometimes it frustrated me that things were being revealed so slowly, but I did like that the reader gets to piece things together themself as they go along. The clues are all there, but you have to put them together. (Speaking of clues, I just briefly want to complain that there was a whole chapter dedicated to this super elaborate riddle based in opera, English history, and Norse Mythology and they barely spent any time going over it! It made me so mad because it was such a complicated riddle that I could only figure out bits and pieces of it with help from Google and the characters only solved, like, two parts of it! I really wanted a full analysis, but alas, it was not to be. Which was honestly probably good for the pacing of the story, but STILL!) There was a bit of romance in this story, and it was fairly triangular (although, there was also another guy who might have made it a sort of square, but there was also another girl who was interested in one of the boys, so kind of a love pentagon thing going on). The “who will she end up with?” thing didn’t really go so well in my opinion because there was really only one serious option, but the romance, along with several major plot points are still not resolved by the end of the book so we’ll have to wait until the sequel to find out if I’m right. I should probably wrap this up before I give too much away. Final notes: I really liked this book even if I was confused about sections sometimes. I thought Iris was an interesting and likeable character and even though I wasn’t fond of him, I thought Adam was intriguing too along with many of the others. If you are into books with high stakes competitions, impending doom, super powers, crazy rich people, and kick-patooty girls and you can stomach the astounding violence, then I definitely recommend that you give The Bones of Ruin a read. I will be eagerly awaiting any news of the sequel. Until next time! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43699470-the-bones-of-ruin Personal Rating: 2.75 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.49 Grey Haward has always detested the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she has always followed the rules, taking the potion the Chemists ration out that helps the town’s people survive. A potion that Grey suspects she—like her grandfather and father—may not actually need. By working at her grandfather’s repair shop, sorting the small gears and dusting the curio cabinet inside, Grey has tried to stay unnoticed—or as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens. Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by the Chemists’ enforcers after trying to protect Grey one night, and after seeing the extent of his punishment, suddenly taking risks seems the only decision she can make. But with the risk comes the reality that the Chemists know her family’s secret, and the Chemists soon decide to use her for their own purposes. Panicked, Grey retreats to the only safe place she knows—her grandfather’s shop. There, however, a larger secret confronts her when her touch unlocks the old curio cabinet in the corner and reveals a world where porcelain and clockwork people are real. There, she could find the key that may save Whit’s life and also end the Chemists’ dark rule forever. (goodreads.com) I hesitate to put this in the “Christian” category. For, although it is published by Blink, which is a branch of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, it doesn’t exactly seem like a book written for Christian readers. Regardless, I will put it in the “Christian” category of my blog because there are only three other books in that section. So, I have no idea why I read this book. I think I was hoping for fun steampunk adventures because when I first saw it I’d just finished with the Etiquette and Espionage series by Gail Carriger. But I read it and it was not exactly the thrilling adventure I hoped it would be. Yeah, there was loads of adventure and loads of action. And sure, there were lots of exciting parts, but I also found myself unable to pay attention to the action scenes. I even skimmed through a few pages. It was also quite difficult for me to get into this book and it seemed like the interesting parts didn’t start until Grey actually went to Curio City and after the newness of reading about Curio City, that too got boring. As you see, this book already didn’t have a lot going for it, but then there were the characters *insert the sound a parent makes when “they aren’t mad, they’re disappointed”*. First off we have Grey Haward. She wasn’t bad as far as MCs go, actually. At least she wasn’t constantly complaining or talking about how unfortunate she was. Her life was a wreck, but she pushed through because she had a job to do. And she didn’t even act like her circumstances were super unfair or horrible, she just kept going. I have to say, I really enjoyed a female protagonist who didn’t whine or complain. Apart from being kind of boring she was a pretty good character. Then we’ve got Whit. Urgh. He. Was. So. Boring. I just didn’t care a whit for what happened to Whit (see what I did there?). And he fell in love with a girl so fast it just about gave me Whitlash (hehe, get it? Whitlash?). Unfortunately, there were whole chapters just about him and they were filled with Whitless dialogue (hurhurhur) and I was about at my Whit’s end (okay, I’ll stop) with his lack of intelligence. You could say he was (sorry in advance) a half-Whit. All puns aside, he was just kind of a boring character and, though I felt pity for him, I couldn’t really connect to him. Onto Blaise: aka the Mad Tock. If you’ve read my post about Things I’m Sick of in Teen Books then you know that I am not overly fond of mysterious men with a troubled past. Blaise starts out as enigmatic and, what do you know? He’s got a very troubled history with the people of Curio City and the people of the town Grey is from. Plus, he’s got that possessive streak in him where he thinks things like “she should be with me” and “she’s mine” *narrows eyes at Blaise*. He does a decent job of correcting his own aggravatingly possessive thoughts, so I’m not too mad at him, but still. There were a lot of big characters in this book that I would love to talk about: Fantine, Nettie (I loved Nettie, she was adorably awesome), Sir Weatherton, Seree, Callis, Olan, Steinar, Adante, that guy whose name I can’t remember but I know starts with an “H”... there were a lot of characters jammed into this book. Some of them were interesting, some of them not so much, but one that I definitely want to talk about is Lord Blueboy. My first reaction to the ruler of Curio City was “oh, here’s the power hungry, gentlemanly, creepy, makes everything feel inappropriate, guy”. Lo and behold, he was indeed that guy and my, oh, my was he disturbing. Lord Blueboy (even the name creeps me out) is one of the main reasons I question if this book was actually read by any of the people who claim it is a “clean YA novel”. Whenever he was on the scene he made my skin crawl and I just wanted to punch him in his supposedly gorgeous face and tell him to leave Grey alone. Alas, I cannot punch people who reside in books (though if you know how to do so I would be very interested). I'm rather perturbed by the moral content of this novel. The publishing company claims it has good teen books that are “clean” and they do have their definition of “clean” on their website here, but I still don't feel like this quite met the standard. I don't wish to go into much detail but there were parts (mostly whenever Lord Blueboy was around) that made Grey out to be an object and something to be explored. Nope. Nopety no. I was not a fan of those parts. On a different note, I'm not really bothered by violence, however many people are so I feel inclined to report that this book had a lot of it, described it detail. Like, we're talking body parts flailing, people, and blood. Lots of blood. The world building could have been better, in my personal opinion (and that’s saying something coming from me). In Grey’s hometown I wasn’t sure if it was in another world or an alternate version of our world and the only way I ever figured this out was because I think someone said something about Colorado and then Grey mentioned the United States Army. The book was supposed to be steampunk, but I feel like it was a steampunk dystopian but still in the late 1800’s. Does that make sense? No? Well, it didn’t really make sense to me either when I was reading it. And then Curio City, which seemed like it was full of opportunities for really great world building, didn’t give me much explanation as to how it existed. It said a little bit about why, but never how. I thought it was supposed to be in a curio cabinet, but it seemed like a whole different world - oh hey! Maybe it was supposed to be like Narnia! Except, it seemed like the only way you could get in was through the cabinet and that the cabinet and the magical world could not exist apart from each other. Sooooo… not really sure. I was kind of hoping it would be like the porcies and tocks were actually living in a curio cabinet and there would be shelves and other knick-knacks on the shelves that they came up with creative names for that were close to what we call them, but hilariously different - I wanted it to be like The Lego Movie, okay? There, I said it. But it wasn’t and I was super disappointed. I know that’s a stupid thing to be disappointed about, but I was and it may or may not have made me like the book less. Also, can I real quick say that I wish there had been more about the Valor Society? Because they sounded cool. Sir Weatherton sounded cool. His wife sounded cool. They had all the fun steampunk gear and I wanted to see more of it and more of porcies doing dangerous stunts. One more thing, what the heck did the symbolism in this book mean? I could see that it was there, and I could tell that it was trying to be Biblical, but it really didn’t align with any common gospel symbols that you generally see in literature. I mean there kind of was, but it didn’t quite work and if you thought about it too much it became really weird. And why was there a god inside the curio cabinet, but no sign of one in the “real” world? What exactly was this book trying to say about beauty? Because it started off sounding like a “beauty isn’t everything”, but then the porcies were talking about how the “Designer” didn’t want them to be ugly and how ugliness was bad, but then the heroes briefly touched on the fact that even ugly people deserve clean water (idk, man, idk). I’m sure you aren’t surprised that I was baffled. I’m sorry, book, I really wanted to like you, but you were only okay. Subpar. Fine. Ordinary. Meh. I said this last time, but hopefully next time I’ll write a review for a book I actually end up liking. I just have to read a good book first… I’m kidding, I have plenty of good books I could review, but ranting is just easier than praising. Which isn’t good. Children, don’t look to me as a rolemodel. Build each other up, don’t tear each other down. Thanks for reading! I shall now fly off with my steam powered flight suit. *whoosh* Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25309770-curio?ac=1&from_search=true Hey all the peoples! I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted, but I’ve been having computer issues for the past month or so and I have a new computer now (after a lot of rigamarole and trips to Best Buy) so I should be back to posting two or three times a week. Sorry about the long absence! Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.53 Nicolette’s awful stepsisters call her “Mechanica” to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother’s knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have turned her into a servant in her own home. But on her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette discovers a secret workshop in the cellar and begins to dare to imagine a new life for herself. Could the mysterious books and tools hidden there—and the mechanical menagerie, led by a tiny metal horse named Jules—be the key to escaping her dreary existence? With a technological exposition and royal ball on the horizon, the timing might just be perfect for Nicolette to earn her freedom at last. (goodreads.com) When I first saw this book I was filled with indignation. Was this not just a Cinder wannabe? Was it not a complete knock off? Turns out, it was not. I had expected this book to mimic Marissa Meyer’s Cinder in that they were both about mechanic Cinderella’s, but, as it turns out, this book is quite different from my beloved Lunar Chronicles. Sure, some of the concepts and plot points were the same, but there are only so many places you can go with fairytale adaptations. In addition to being unique, this book was also quite good. The setting is in a made up world of steampunkiness and magic. I’m kind of new to the steampunk genre, but I think this book made it very approachable and not so peculiar that my poor punkless mind couldn’t understand. I’m not overly fond of the way their world was explained, as the second chapter of the book was pretty much all exposition, but it still did a fairly decent job of not suffocating me with information. The stepsisters, or “Steps”, were pretty much like every set of evil sisters ever since the beginning of the Cinderella story. They were mean without reason, petty, and totally okay with treating their stepsister like a servant. The stepmother was no better. Basically, this trio was a brainless bunch without any original character traits. Oddly enough, we do see a few moments of sympathy for the stepmother, which don’t really result in anything and really only serve to show that Nicolette is a compassionate person. Nicolette herself is the main reason Mechanica is different from Cinder. While Linh Cinder is a spunky, majorly sarcastic character, Nicolette Lampton is quiet, somewhat shy, and spends most of her time in her basement. One thing that is the same about them is that they both take control of their less than ideal situations and work on getting out of those situations. Caro is a fun character who is always bursting with excitement and happiness. She has a few interesting insights on life, though I’m not sure I agree with all of them, and she always seems to ready to help. Fin is strange. His character seems to jump around a lot and he seems like he’s just thrown into the story at some points without any reason. This book seems to be attempting to make a statement about how wrong racism is, but it doesn’t quite get there. The setting gets everything ready for a thoughtful story about how treating someone as less than you because they are different isn’t right, but the plot gets in the way of this statement. However, I’ve recently discovered that there is to be a sequel to this book, and perhaps they will get around to it then. So, no, it wasn’t a perfect book, probably not worthy of the four stars I gave it, but I really enjoyed the writing. Something you should probably know about me is that I usually rate a book by how much I enjoyed it, not by how many things were wrong with it or not completely perfect. I liked reading this book, and it was easy to get into so I gave it a higher rating. If you read this book you might not like it, but that’s okay. It’s not flawless, but I liked it. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below on your thoughts about this book or you can leave me a suggestion on what you want me to review next. Okie dokie artichokies, I’m off to the inventor’s exposition (I just realized that the last book I reviewed was a Cinderella retelling and that I can’t use the “oh no it’s midnight” sign off again). Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455099-mechanica?ac=1&from_search=true 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 |
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