Book Review: Etiquette and Espionage

Title: Etiquette and Espionage
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: Finishing School
Genre: Steampunk/Paranormal/YA
Goodreads rating: 3.76
My rating: 3.8

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

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Check out that cover! It gives a perfect impression for the feel of the book.  Some book covers are beautiful but after reading the book doesn't really seem accurate.  This cover totally captures what the book is, I happen to quite love it!

When I first started reading this book I was like, 1800's setting, advanced machinery, vampires and werewolves...how very odd!  Indeed this book is a really interesting pairing of steampunk and paranormal.  I don't know why but it just seemed so odd.   Still, the interesting mix of genre's made for a fun read.  

Sophronia, the misbehaving adventurer, finds her place in life when she attends Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.  This traveling school in the sky is perfect for her and her lifelong quest to be anything but the perfect young lady her mother wants her to be.  But in order to become the spy/adventurer she knows she's meant to be incidentally she does have to learn to be a proper lady in the process, but that doesn't stop her from dressing up like a boy and hanging out with the sooties. 

There are a lot of great supporting characters in this book.  From her room, roommate to the sootie Soap to her dormmate, Sidhead(pronounced She-ak I believe), who was raised by werewolves.  

There is really no romance in this book, which is really ok seeing as Sophronia is only 14.  But by the end of the book there is definitely the promise of possible romance/s for future books.  The second book, Curtsies and Conspiracies came out not too long ago and was even better than the first book.  I still think about a specific scene where Sophronia and Sidhead dress up as boys and I remember how hard I was laughing at the time.  

Speaking of Sidhead, there is another series written by Carriger called the Parasol Protectorate which came out before this series.  I personally have not read it but I believe she is in there as well, before she is sent to the "finishing school."

All in all this is just a light, fun read to pick up from your local library.