Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (Finishing School #1)

Think steampunk Harry Potter with assassins
Jul 16, 2015
2 min read

Sophronia Temminnick is a lost cause. Her mother is at her wits end. The girl is hardly a lady, and her mother desperately needs an expert to reform Sophronia. Thankfully, Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing School for Young Ladies of Quality is happy to take Sphronia in. Sophronia is in for a surprise - and the school experience of a lifetime - when she arrives at the school only to learn that it is a finishing school for finishing people. Sophronia settles in to her new life, but not all is well. Not only is one of the older students out to get her, a group of shady criminals is after something known only as The Prototype, an extremely valuable machine. Sophronia and her friends take it upon themselves to save the prototype and, of course, finish finishing school.

Sophronia is a delightful heroine. Spunky and stubborn, she does whatever she wants, although she's fully aware of the consequences and is not reckless. She’s clever and resourceful, often the ringleader who comes up with the schemes. She's too curious for her own good sometimes. In the end, she's a loyal friend and valuable ally as well as an entertaining heroine. I can't wait to see how she develops!

One thing I adored about Etiquette & Espionage was the language and laugh-out-loud terms. Death Weasel Confederacy, The Depraved Lens of Crispy Magnification, plays with titles like "An Ideal Bathtub", and so on made me smile more than once. The characters' seriousness when talking about such things only made it funnier! My only problem was not knowing exactly what the crazy terms meant in some cases and not being told in the story.

Overall, this was a descent book. I enjoyed the characters and their developments, and I was impressed by the supernatural, historical steampunk world of the series. I would consider reading more books in the series. However, I did think that the story was a bit anticlimactic and the plot was a little slow at times. Nevertheless, this book put a smile on my face and left me shaking my head in amusement! I hope to see more of this fantastical world in the sequel and can't wait to read it! 3.7/5 stars.