Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross [Review]

3.5 out of 5 Robots!

  

The Girl in Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Series: The Steampunk Chronicles #1
Genre: Steampunk/Historical YA

Release: May 24, 2011

Hardcover: 473 Pages

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

My Copy: Netgalley

Reviewer: Shannon

Buy the Book: Amazon

Book Summary:
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 no "normal" Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch....

Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's 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 and an unrequited love for 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, finally fit in.

But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on--even if it seems no one believes her.  (Courtesy of the Publisher)

 
Shannon's Thoughts:

This is the first Steampunk novel I’ve read.  I like the idea of Steampunk so I was really interested to read a true Steampunk novel and I heard a lot of good things about this book.  And for the most part I liked it.  But I felt like there was a lot of “fluff” that got in the way of the story.  Cross wanted to make sure her readers knew they were reading a STEAMPUNK novel and and throw in A LOT of Steampunk elements.  Sometimes it worked really well and sometimes it seemed a little silly.  Also, her characters found themselves a lot more clever than I did.  But once you peeled back some of the extraneous layers, the actual story was interesting and enjoyable. Cross mentions she was influenced by A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and it shows.  At times I felt like I was reading a novelized version of LXG.  And for me, I think that’s a problem with Steampunk novels in general.  So much of what interests me about Steampunk is in the visuals.  I think this book would have been awesome as a graphic novel, but as a regular novel it was just a tad cheesy for me.  But after I finished it, I did find myself really wanting to read the second, Girl in a Clockwork Collar, so at some level it got through to me! 


Books in the series in the order they should be read:
0.5. The Strange Case of Finley Jayne
1. Girl in the Steel Corset
2. Girl in the Clockwork Collar
3. Girl with the Iron Touch (expected publication 2013)