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

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: February 5, 2013
Pages: 320
Source: For Review from Hachette Book Group Canada
Rating: 5 Stars

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 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.

In short: Etiquette & Espionage gets the plot, characters, and whimsical tone just right and I am now smitten with Gail Carriger.

So, I may have a new author crush. Gail Carriger is best known for her Parasol Protectorate series and while I always hear amazing things about it, I am, as always, wary when it comes to adult books. When I heard she would be writing a new YA series - set in the same universe as her Parasol Protectorate series - and when I saw the absolutely STUNNING cover for Etiquette & Espionage, I knew I needed to read it. And that's when I found out that Gail Carriger is a brilliant and clever author with a talent for humourous writing, vibrant characters, and fast-paced entertaining plots. And I was smitten.

Etiquette & Espionage is like a parody of a Victorian Era novel, complete with over exaggerated ideals of strict morality, restrained sexuality, and refined sensibilities. When Sophronia, a young lady of fourteen years, is picked to attend Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, what she doesn't know is that it is no ordinary finishing school. She is to learn to be an intelligencer - Victorian Lady-style.

It is beyond me how hours upon hours of class time could be spent just to master the art of fainting gracefully, fluttering eyelashes seductively, and blushing prettily on command, but that makes up the bulk of Sophronia's schooling, along with history classes with her vampire professor and fighting classes with her werewolf professor. Hilarious. I feel like it takes serious skill to get whimsy right as an author. Because anyone can do weird and silly, but whimsy takes a certain amount of cleverness and Gail Carriger got it just right.

As you might imagine by the humourous tone of the plot, the characters are similarly quirky and cartoonish and all together brilliant. They have names like Mrs. Barnaclegoose, Lord Dingleproops, and Mr. Shrimpdittle (snort). I seriously LOVED every single one of them. Sophronia is a bold and sensible protagonist who is well suited to a career as an intelligencer due to her curious and adventurous tendencies. All secondary characters that make up her ragtag group of friends are similarly loveable and memorable. There is the barest hint of a playful romance blossoming in Etiquette & Espionage that is sure to develop over the course of the series, involving Sophronia and a guy nicknamed Soap who is - GASP - black. And a lower class sootie to boot! Scandal.

It is possible that had I been in a more critical mood, I might have found some fault with Etiquette & Espionage. But I was in the exact mood for it and honestly, Etiquette & Espionage isn't a book that takes itself seriously so the reader shouldn't either. I admit some bias in my love for Etiquette & Espionage because it had a vague semblance to Harry Potter - a quirky boarding school, fun and cartoonish characters, a general whimsical atmosphere. Sounds good, right? You should read it!

Other Reviews:
Cozy Up With A Good Read
Megan Likes Books
Reading In Winter

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