Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Published February 5th 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Synopsis: 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.

Review: This book takes place in an alternative, steam-punky Victorian era. It was a bit much for me. We were just thrown into this world with little to no explanation or description of what was going on. Sopronia's family is done dealing with her exploring and curiosity and send her off to finishing school. But this finishing school isn't typical, they also teach espionage. Dun dun dun....

Something that really bothered me about this book is that once Sophronia was at school, she really changed and without much time or effort. Yes, she does break the rules, climbs around and goes into the engine room. But gone is her curiosity, her taking apart things to make them worse. It was almost like 2 different characters, and neither one really got deeply developed. 

I felt so lost throughout this story, like I had missed some background information or skipped portions of the book. But I hadn't. I didn't feel like there was a plot for most of this book.

All in all, a so-so 2.5-3 star read. I will read the sequel because on goodreads, the sequel has higher ratings than this story.

*I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.