Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger



Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)Title:  Etiquette and Espionage
Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher:  Hachette Little, Brown and company
Publishing Date:  October 8, 2013
Pages: 320
Genre: YA Steampunk/Alternate History/Supernatral
Series: Finishing School #1
Source: Paperback


  
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.



Pretty much this is an amazing kick butt steampunk/fantasy/action packed book. It has everything you could want in a book. Humor, action, werewolves and vampires, OH MY! 

What made me pick this book up?
 I had seen the second book at Barnes and Noble for a long time, and I had kept looking and looking for the first one. I picked this book up because the cover really caught my eye. It was bright and had Victorian clothing on, which immediately made me think steampunk. That's why I originally picked the book up.

What do I like about the cover?
It's more what I don't like about the cover. Which is absolutely nothing. The cover caught my eye pretty quickly. I especially love the colors of the cover.

What made me read it?
Steampunk. That's about it. Jenn had read another book by her, and said she was really funny. Which is another thing I look for in books, if it can make me laugh out loud then I'm sure I'll love the book. Other than that I love anything steampunk.

What did I like the most?
The humor, I was almost falling out of my chair at work laughing. I love the vampires and werewolves and how they are just a normal thing of society. I also love seeing the different gadgets and such that they come up with.

The least?
That it ended. But I just started the second one, so yay. 

Would you read the rest of the series/Other books by this author?
Uh, yes. I literally want to go buy every book by her now. 



This has become one of my favorite series, I really love this book and I'm sure I'd read it again.




Possible books of likeness...

128233299166877Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly, #1)Innocent Darkness (The Aether Chronicles, #1)The Unnaturalists (The Unnaturalists, #1)


Gail Carriger
Gail Carriger writes comedic steampunk mixed with urbane fantasy in three series: two adult, the Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol, and one YA, the Finishing School. Her books are published in over a dozen different language. She has twelve NYT bestsellers via five different lists (including #1 in Manga). She has received the Alex Award from the ALA (for her debut Soulless) and the Prix Julia Verlanger and the Elbakin Award from French readers. She was once an archaeologist and is overly fond of tea.
Gail has a fun newsletter: the Monthly Chirrup, sign up at
http://www.gailcarriger.com/contact.php

3 comments:

  1. I went and pulled this book off the shelves and sat it on my desk....again. I think this is the third time, but I'm bound and determined to read it. I've heard such good things. Thanks for the reminder...and the great review!

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  2. I am glad that you liked it. I have been wanting to read it for a long while. It is just one of those books that keeps getting buried in the endless TBR pile.
    -Bookish Glamma

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  3. I so need to start this series, I'm not too much of a fan of steampunk (I have read a few I liked, and some I haven't) so I guess it's all how it's incorporated and executed, so this sounds awesome, and love that it's got a bit of everything, and seriously, humour is a must, so I'm in. Glad you're loving the series! :)

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