Gail Carriger's Manners & Mutiny

Because of New Year's & all I'm not sure if Book Beginnings & Friday56 will be going as regularly scheduled or not ... but if they ARE then, hopefully, I'll come out of my intended cold-pill stupor long enough to link this up. If not, well ... whatever.  
Friday56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader.

I wasn't sure if I would end up reading Gail Carriger's Manners & Mutiny this month or not. I typically dedicate December to Christmas-y books and didn't figure that this would fit. Besides, it's the last in the Finishing School series and I've dreaded seeing it end because I've loved it so horribly much. Once I finished everything on my December TBR, though (including a few last-minute additions), I decided that I couldn't wait any longer to find out what happens with my Sophronia and her cohorts. After all, I had read the first book in the series last December so why not come full circle? How thrilled I was to discover that the book overlaps Christmas with the time-frame so it fits my month-long theme after all!

The time-frame of the book wasn't the only thing that thrilled me, of course. I have absolutely adored watching these characters mature over the course of the series and for the most part they got a proper send-off by Carriger. Granted, I would be thrilled to see several of them re-appear in her other series ... especially those few whose futures were more or less left with question marks dangling like participles. (This lack of info is the only reason I'm doing 4 stars instead of 5 on Goodreads ... and am I the only one who constantly writes it as GoodReads and then has to go back and lowercase the 'r'?)

All in all, a good finish to the Finishing School. Sure, there were some things I would tinker with and some twists I would have liked to see but I'm still thrilled with the series as a whole and I am definitely adding the first few books (at least) of the next chronological series (The Parasol Protectorate) to my Reading Thing for 2016!

A Well-Read Mini-Ramble -- Gail Carriger's Waistcoats & Weaponry

I always worry about spoilers and such when rambling about a book in a series -- particularly if it's significantly into said series and the books aren't stand-alones but really must be read in order. SO, I'm experimenting with A Well-Read Mini-Ramble which may (or may not) become a regular thing here. Right now I'm leaning more towards the "may" than the "may not." I think that it would also be good for some of the Reading With John entries particularly when he doesn't feel like writing much ... I could probably at least convince him to make a list.

I finished Gail Carriger's Waistcoats & Weaponry on the bus in to work tonight and omigosh it was a fabulous installment in the series. The next (and last) book is due out in just a few weeks and I'm already considering lifting my self-imposed "No Book Buying" ban in order to read it ASAP.

#TeaserTuesday # 32 -- Gail Carriger's Waistcoats & Weaponry

The Book & The Tease

Gail Carriger - Waistcoats & Weaponry

The Meme

#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 -- Gail Carriger's Curtsies & Conspiracies

It's another Friday with The Friday 56 and Book Beginnings (also found at Freda's Voice & hosted by Rose City Reader)!

Today we're visiting Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger -- the second in her Finishing School series and the seventh in my 20 Books of Summer!

I've never been big on flower arrangements ... but even for ME this sounds like fun!

Fast forward to the The Friday 56:

Etiquette & Espionage : The Verdict

I finished Gail Carriger's Etiquette & Espionage this morning and while I've already given my initial thoughts, I figured I should come back and give the final verdict!

It was a fun, easy read ... and I've already made plans to continue the series which doesn't always happen. 
Now, it IS a "young adult" book so if you go into it thinking for serious adult situations ... you aren't going to find them. The main character is, after all, fourteen years old. There's light flirtation and minor swooning but, luckily, that's about all you get on the romance end of the spectrum. I was very thankful for this as I hate seeing kids portrayed as something other than kids.  Of course, I am hoping that as the kids age there'll be more Sophronia than merely batting her eyelashes (which, as it turns out, is a key skill to have in feminine espionage).

I love her friends! With her since the very beginning of her adventures at (or to, actually) Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, are Dimity and her brother, Pill (who attends the nearby boy's school for evil geniuses .... well, whenever the school floats by, anyway. Remember .... it flies.). While Sophronia is spitfire and tomboy, Dimity is frilly girly-girl. They complement each other well and help each other to grow. Even Pill, what little we get to see of him, shows growth over the course of the semester. It would be so easy just to write him off since he's not in the forefront but Carriger doesn't do that.

Along the way we also get to know the Mean Girl (and mean-girl-in-training, it seems), the vampire teacher, the werewolf, Mademoiselle Geraldine who thinks she's running a normal school (they think -- I'm not so sure she's as clueless as they make out), the 9-year-old niece of another teacher who's even more tomboy than Sophronia (and even more of a spitfire), the "sooties" who work in the boiler room, the young Lady who was raised by werewolves and laments that girls (apparently) can't be werewolves themselves, bad guys, good girls, bad girls, good guys .... and, of course, the mechanicals (and mechanimals).

There's intrigue, of course, though it wasn't horribly intriguing which I attribute to the whole "young adult" aspect. Still, I loved seeing how the "nonsense" of all of the etiquette lessons end up helping Sophronia and her friends save the day. (Sorry for the "spoiler," but of course they save the day. You didn't expect them not to, did you?)

As far as your "standard steam punk" goes, I couldn't tell you how this would rate as it's my first. It won't be my last, though!

Etiquette & Espionage - Initial Thoughts

I have a big bone to pick with the bus driver who drove the second leg of my trip in to work tonight : he didn't have the heat turned on so it was too cold to read. It wouldn't be such a huge offense some nights, but I'm reading Gail Carriger's Etiquette & Espionage and the main character, 14-year-old Sophronia is just beginning to understand that the "finishing school" she has been suddenly enrolled in isn't your normal type of finishing school.

• It flies. Like, in the air flies.
• She's delivered to the school on the back of a werewolf.
• There are mechanical maids like Rosie from The Jetsons -- but in the 1850's. (She has a mechanical butler at home so that part isn't so strange. I suppose.)
• Her flying school gets attacked by flying bandits (and, as a result, she ends up with a mechanical dog).
• One of her new teachers is a vampire.

I've never ventured into the whole "steam punk" thing until now aside from oohing and aahing over different cosplay pictures online, but so far I'm loving it!

Sophronia is a spitfire. It's probably why her family was so eager to send her to finishing school -- to break her of it. However, it also seems to be why the school was so eager to take her -- to cultivate it. I'm all for the cultivation of spitfire in girls.

I'm currently only a third of the way through -- Chapter 8 : "The Teaching Habits of Werewolves."  I'm already recommending it to friends and I'm extremely glad that it was recommended to me!

Now, I'm going to do a little bit of work (I know, right? Actually working while at work? Crazy.) THEN I'm going to get back to reading ....