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Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)

Gail Carriger

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Jul 08, 2013 Susan rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-club, middle-grade

Dear J.K. Rowling,

I’m sorry about all the times my friends and I said you weren’t a great writer. It took reading Etiquette and Espionage for me to realize just how much skill went into portraying Hogwarts in HP1. Please accept my apologies and enjoy your well-deserved royalties.

Pip pip cheerio,
Yours &c.

P.S. You and your publishers also nailed the style for a middle grade into YA series. Etiquette and Espionage is certainly not a YA book, regardless of what the cover is showing.

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Nov 27, 2011 Bonnie rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2013-books, young-adult, neo-victorian-regency

I would have loved this book when I was 10. Because that is the age this was written for.

This reads, straight-up, like an older elementary school/younger middle school book. I do not even know how this book can be marketed as a YA book (as opposed to a middle grade or grade school one) with a straight face.

For kids this really is a great read -it's got a spunky heroine who has more sense and cleverness than all the adults in the story combined. She's a natural spy who in the opening scene crawl I would have loved this book when I was 10. Because that is the age this was written for.

This reads, straight-up, like an older elementary school/younger middle school book. I do not even know how this book can be marketed as a YA book (as opposed to a middle grade or grade school one) with a straight face.

For kids this really is a great read -it's got a spunky heroine who has more sense and cleverness than all the adults in the story combined. She's a natural spy who in the opening scene crawls into a dumbwaiter to eavesdrop on her mother and a guest. She gets recruited to a finishing school that teaches young girls how to "finish" people in silly and over-the-top ways (learn arithmetic to calculate how to poison only half your guests, ladies! handkerchiefs should always be handy, to use as a weapon or to wipe the brow of a beau, girls!). Everyone else is from an "evil" family and there's a school for boys, where one of the character's younger brothers is going to perfect his evil scientist routine. The whole "bad" families is not really explored, nor are the real implications of training essentially child soldiers. This is children's TV-show villainry and morals here. There's also a not-very-exciting plot in which Sophronia and her friends have to figure out how a not-scarily-evil older student hid a McGuffin and get it back before it falls into the hands of the bad guys.

Sophoronia is supposedly fourteen but she also reads like a prepubescent child, as do her friends. Not only in her actions and words (and how the hell does a fourteen year old fit in a dumb waiter? is she unusually tiny?), but also in the fact that boys are seen as chums and partners-in-crime, with very little sexual/romantic interest (there's a few "crushes" but that's as far as it goes).

Everything about this book is simple and simplistic, from the characters to the plot to the writing. it also goes-over-the-top cutesy sometimes (trying too hard to be "charming"?), like the fact that one of the finishing school professors says "wot, wot?" all the time like some hokey British stereotype of a cheerful old gentleman.

So, yeah, this would've been great for a 5th grade me, back when I was in my Harriet the Spy phase. Now that I'm far too old for this book, it simply bored me out of my mind. ...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Alyssa rated it liked it

Shelves: book-club

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’ve been pretty into steampunk for the past couple years, and was really looking forward to this one. It’s set in the same universe as the author’s Parasol Protectorate series for adults, which I have not read, but friends have enjoyed it and recommended it to me. So when the WordNerds book club chose this as our May book, I was very excited! I was kinda bummed when I sat down to read it and only thought it was okay—there were some things I liked, some things I didn’t, and overall I think the b I’ve been pretty into steampunk for the past couple years, and was really looking forward to this one. It’s set in the same universe as the author’s Parasol Protectorate series for adults, which I have not read, but friends have enjoyed it and recommended it to me. So when the WordNerds book club chose this as our May book, I was very excited! I was kinda bummed when I sat down to read it and only thought it was okay—there were some things I liked, some things I didn’t, and overall I think the book and I just weren’t suited to each other.

First off, there was one big obstacle to me reading this book, and it had nothing to do with the writing. The main character’s name is Sophronia, and unfortunately a friend of my family used to have a dachshund named Sophronia. It’s such a unique name that that’s the only place I’d ever heard it before, so the whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking about the bratty wiener dog that ate my shoe. AND THEN the Sophronia from the story acquired a robot dachshund! It was just too much for me… XD

In all seriousness though, I think one of the reasons this book ended up just not being for me was that it was definitely at the lower end of YA. The main characters are 10-14 (well, at least they’re supposed to be, but I’ll get to that later), so that alone gave the book more of a middle-grade feel to me, although it is marketed as YA. I mean, there are plenty of middle-grade books I’ve read while not in that targeted age group that I’ve enjoyed (ex: Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events). This one just didn’t do it for me.

Overall, I think there just wasn’t as much depth to the story and the characters as I would’ve liked. I don’t expect every book to be a John Green, but even in my fun and frothy reads I like my characters to be more than just what’s on the surface and to have consistency in their personality, attitudes, and actions. The friendships between the girls at the school developed, but not in particularly intriguing ways. Sophronia was a rather precocious 14 in some ways, but it was believable. Vieve, a mischievous 9-year-old mechanic-type (who the interwebs tell me shows up in the later-set Parasol Protectorate series), most certainly does not act or talk like any 9-year-old I have met, no matter how precocious. The flirtation between Sophronia (I have to call her Sophie in my head so I don’t think of that damn dachshund) and Soap was cute, but as it’s a middle-grade-y book, it doesn’t go beyond that. Which is fine. Refreshing, even!

Additionally, some things just didn’t make sense to me, or seem realistic. I’m still not sure why Monique was fake-crying after the flywaymen attacked the carriage taking them to the school at the beginning of the book. And if the teachers wanted to make her give up the location of the prototype, would they really send a nearly-graduated 17-year-old (or was she 18? I can’t remember) to go hang out with the 13-year-old first years? What would that accomplish? And would Monique really get her kicks out of making life difficult for these girls who are so much younger than her? I just wasn’t convinced.

For 307 pages, I felt like not all that much happened. The story plodded along at a slow but steady pace. I thought maybe things were being set up to come together all at the end, but even the climax of the story didn’t really feel as though it was this great culmination of things set into place earlier. That being said, the climax of the story at Sophronia’s sister’s coming out party was easily the most fun of the book. Probably because there was at last a bit of action! Finally finding the prototype, learning a bit about the different factions that want it, mechanical dogs, conflagrations in the garden…if the book had had more scenes like that, I would have probably found it much more engaging. There were lots of plot threads left flapping in the wind for the next book, such as Monique’s fate, who her benefactor at the school is, the dark-haired Piston boy making eyes at Sophronia, and the involvement of the military. If the next one has more action, I might be tempted to read it. Might.

I did enjoy the humor in the writing, though. Sometimes it felt a little overwrought, with the ridiculous names (Lord Dingleproops, Mrs. Barnaclegoose, Bumbersnoot…I imagine most people probably find them amusing, but for me it was a bit much), and the kind of over-the-top pseudo-Britishisms (pip, pip, cheerio! Whot whot, topping!). (Okay, to be fair, “pip pip cheerio” never appeared in the book, but you get the picture.) But overall, I liked the light, humorous tone of the writing, and there were many lines that actually made me laugh out loud.

All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a bad book. I was just a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as much as I had hoped for. I think plenty of people would get a kick out of it, but it just wasn’t for me. But now I’m worried, because I don’t know if the things I didn’t enjoy about this book are normal parts of this author’s writing style, or if they’re just something that came about in her transition to YA/middle-grade. ...more

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Apr 19, 2013 nagako rated it really liked it

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