Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Review: 'The Girl In The Steel Corset' by Kady Cross (Steampunk Chronicals #1)

The Girl in the Steel Corset (Steampunk Chronicles, #1)

THE DETAILS:
Pages: 388
Genre: Teenage Fiction, Fantasy, Steampunk
Release Date: 01/06/2011
Publisher: Harlequin Teen Australia
First Published: 24/05/2011
Bought in a Store

THE BLURB:
There's a darkness within me, something I can't always control. If you like a girl with a secret side, you're gonna love me...

In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one - except the thing inside her...

When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But not all Victorian girls have a darker side that makes them capable of knocking out a full-grown man with a single punch...

Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that makes Finley special - makes her one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities; Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret.

Griffin’s investigating a criminal called The Machinist - the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help - and finally be a part of something.


THE REVIEW:
'The Girl in The Steel Corset' is difficult to write a decent review for. It was my first steampunk read and I had a bit of a break from it so I may have forgotten important details. I enjoyed this new-to-me subgenre, but am unsure of whether I genuinely liked the book for it's story or because it introduced me to the subgenre...

The interesting thing about the the steampunk aspect of this novel was that sometimes it didn't seem all that different from other novels. I don't know if  this was me getting carried away with criticisms or whether there wasn't as much steampunk as there should have been. The bit's of steampunk that I did read were pretty cool. I am definitely infatuated by the idea of rebelling machines now..., but sometimes it felt like the author was trying to put in extra details so that they wouldn't forget it was steampunk, which was a little weird. I also thought that some of the 'inventions' sounded a little unoriginal.

I thought that the main character Finley was pretty cool. She was a mixture of two personalities; one of which would overtake her body at any given time and do crazy things. I loved this. It gives a whole new meaning to the term 'anger management'. One thing that was definitely different about this story was Finley's personalities and the effect they had on her relationships. This author definitely reinvented the love triangle with this interesting character.

One thing that I really liked was that the author chose to write more about the other characters. It's a nice change, compared to paranormal romances that go back and forth between the perspectives of two different characters (often the ones falling in love).

I also liked the descriptions in this book. Some of the metaphors were actually quite funny. Sometimes though, it seemed like the author was at a loss for better words and wrote a lot more because of it. This did make the book drag on a little bit towards the end.

Overall, I think 4/5 stars is a fair rating. I really enjoyed my first steampunk read and can't wait to read more of this subgenre.

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Natalie

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