Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Pages: 307
Intended Audience: Teens and mature tweens
Genre: Steampunk
Notes for Parents: Some references to violence

The Inside Cover

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 Temminnick is a great trial to her poor mother—her atrocious curtsy is an embarrassment to the family name. So Mrs. Temminnick enrolls her daughter 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 certainly learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage—in the politest ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

This is the first in a series, and takes place in the same world as her adult series, the Parasol Protectorate. This is the author’s first young adult book.

What’s good?

Great characters and plenty of action highlight this quirky adventure set in Victorian England with robots, vampires, and werewolves. The author’s simple writing style is enhanced with a sophisticated vocabulary (e.g. décolletage, prevaricate) and great use of metaphors and similes. The story is light-hearted and has a good pace.
Best Part: Pillover and Bumbersnoot the mechanimal.

What isn’t good?

The names of some of the characters are a bit ridiculous (e.g. Frowbritcher, Mrs. Barnaclegoose) and at times the story goes from sophisticated to juvenile quite quickly. The biggest problem, however, is the weak plot. The search for the device is dealt with very passively compared to learning curtsies and feeding Bumbersnoot.
Worst part: There was nothing terrible.

Recommendation þþþoo

This is another example of a story with great potential that falls a little short. I loved the characters and the setting was wonderful, but the lazy plot left me less than intrigued. Despite that, it was still entertaining and deserves a recommendation.

Carriger, Gail. Etiquette & Espionage. New York: Scholastic, 2013.