1/9/2024 0 Comments Etiquette and espionage![]() ![]() Thus, the bulk of Sophronia’s development comes as a result of attending said finishing school and encountering fellow students, faculty, and staff – all while trying to uncover a mystery behind a missing device known as the prototype. At first, Sophronia balks at the idea yet is quick to discover that Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality isn’t all that it purports to be. Sophronia’s story begins when her mother – who isn’t quite sure what to do with her resourceful and social grace-deprived daughter – opts to send her off to finishing school. Fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series and its heroine, Alexia Tarabotti, will find the same sharp wit, manners, and charisma here in Sophronia though the latter brings a sense of youthful innocence that endears her to readers in a non-cloying way, thus she and Alexia are not clones. ![]() Sophronia Temminnick serves as the principle protagonist and she’s an absolute delight. ![]() While the novel lacks a strong, rapid-fire plot, it has enough colorful characters, clever world-building, and genuine humor to keep it afloat for me.įor starters, the characters truly make this book. Etiquette and Espionage, the first novel in the Finishing School series, does exactly that thanks to Carriger’s trademark wit, which embeds itself into each character and scene. So here's to hoping.While most steampunk, I have found, tends to court the darker side of the story spectrum, there are those works that waltz on the light side but avoid becoming full-fledged comedies. If it weren't for the amazing world building, and a hope that Sophronia will be more fleshed out and develop a voice of her own, I wouldn't be reading the next book, and this would be a one-star review. And an overuse of them (we're talking at least one per page) is nearly unreadable. To me, an exclamation point is lazy writing. I think the other thing that caught me is this is billed as a YA, but the plot and characters read much more like a MG book.Īnd then the final thing that makes me actually want to throw the book across the room, is the insane amounts of exclamation points. It's like she's Alexia without the dirty thoughts and in a fourteen-year-old body. But Sophronia's voice is not that of a realistic fourteen-year-old. Sure, you can say it's the same author, and that's just her style. She may as well be Alexia for how similar their voices are and how underdeveloped of a character she is. The downer was the progag, fourteen-year-old Sophronia. She did a lot of hard work developing the school and what goes one there. The idea of a young girl going off to this Finishing School, is fun and interesting. I think what really draws me in, time after time to Carriger's novels is the world she's created. like Carriger is setting up the next book rather than allowing this book to be its own fully fleshed out storyline. I liked the plotting in this book, even though it's just a bit flimsy. Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail's legions of fans have come to adore. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage-in the politest possible ways, of course. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish.everything. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.īut Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. 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. Welcome to Finishing School.įourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. ![]()
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