Etiquette & Espionage

Finishing School, Book 1

By: Gail Carriger

Narrated by: Moira Quirk

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

This young adult steampunk series debut set in the same world as the New York Times best-selling Parasol Protectorate is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners - and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia 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 learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage - in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.

©2013 Gail Carriger (P)2013 Hachette Audio

a fun read

a light-hearted fun read for all ages.a mind vacation from all the heavy stuff that I've been reading lately.

incredibly entertaining

I wish I would have found this series sooner. I love this. The performance was amazing and enhanced every joke in the book.

Great first book in new series!

This series looks at a younger character than her Parasol Protectorate books, but is set in the same world. Precocious Sophronia is sent to a finishing school , but it doesn't take her long to realize the school is more then it appears to be.

Wonderful Fun

This is a light book full of strong characters who happen to be women, and enjoy being women, but also love adventure. If you like spies, airships, ballgowns and learning the order of precedence you’d love this book.

Stories to enjoy again and again

Listening to the Finishing School series is like being curled up in a favorite chair, wrapped in your childhood blankee, a hot cup of tea in your hand, a cat purring in your lap, and a pup keeping your feet warm while your watch the snowflakes lazily drifting out your window. Pretty much perfect.

It is a different kind of finishing.

I love the juxtaposition of futuristic technology and old school etiquette school. The story is engaging and unique. The narrator's voice definitely fits and adds a wonderful element to this story.

a fun listen

exciting and clever story. I can't wait to listen to the rest of the series

Exciting!!

The narrator is wonderful! Great book!! Exciting with a little humor. Can’t wait to read the other books!

Favorite!

I first read this book in 2016 loved it and still does! Loved being back with these characters.

Engagingly ridiculous

I may have to preface this review by saying that I have so many fond feelings for this book that they threaten to spill over into noises only dogs can hear. Possibly dolphins.

It's always a joy to find a book full of lively and interesting characters with improbably ridiculous names and go off to find adventure while learning to be proper ladies. Have you seen many books with that premise? I have not, but I'm glad this one exists.

The book itself is entertaining, highly engaging and often extremely hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud at the beautiful absurdity of the premise and many of the equally hilarious situations the characters found themselves powering through. I think it's pretty safe to say that I fell in love with nearly every character in this book, each of them wonderful and unique people, lovingly rendered, but what impressed me most about this book was the overwhelmingly positive female characterization. Here are girls who are strong in very different ways, who accept that they are different and that they are all, in their own ways, important. It's refreshing to find in any novel but especially in a YA novel because we, as girls, all struggle with issues of identity and self worth, with finding a place for ourselves while we figure out who we are, just as the girls in this book do.

Last, but not least, the narration is amazing if maybe a little more slowly paced than I'd like. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series. I hope it's as lovingly absurd and engaging as this one has been.