Title: The Girl in the Steel Corset
Series: The Steampunk Chronicles #1
Author: Kady Cross
Genre: YA, steampunk, historical
Publication date: May 2011
Published by: Harlequin Teen
Source: Borrowed from library
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Buy it: Amazon | Thrift BooksSynopsis: 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.
I’ve had this book on my TBR list for 11 years! And I’m only just getting around to it now! I like the idea of this series, so I was really looking forward to reading this. I’m not gonna lie though, I feel like I liked the prequel, The Strange Case of Finley Jayne, more than I liked this first book in the series 😬
One of the reasons why is because of one of my least favorite tropes to ever exist: the goodman love triangle.
Griffin is a duke and I really liked him. He was very sweet and thoughtful, especially when it came to Finley. Plus I just found him intriguing with his many abilities. But Jack Dandy... I don’t know why I disliked the guy so much. He wasn’t even a bad character, it’s probably just the fact that he was part of the love triangle. Lol. Finley’s darker self was very attracted to this guy and she would go to him so much that I could not understand why. Whatever she saw in him, I couldn’t see it. I was just annoyed by this whole thing 🙄
I did like Finley herself, though, and the opening of this book. We met this Felix guy, who's the son of the people she worked for, but he was just disgusting. And Finley ends up beating the shit out of him, which he definitely deserved, and it was just so good! Like I mentioned, Finley has a darker self, and it was very interesting to learn why she is the way she is—there is a connection to a certain famous book that I found very intriguing, but I won’t say more than that 😉 Anyway, I loved the way Griffin was helping her out with dealing with this.
I also liked most of the other characters. Emily in particular I really liked, given her feisty personality. But I also liked her and Finley’s blooming friendship and Emily saying how it was nice to have another girl around 😠It was so sweet!
However, when we first met all these characters, it felt like there was a lot being thrown at us. I got that we're supposed to get some background info on these characters to know them better and whatever, but it felt very info dump-y. I can’t say I enjoyed that too much. I did enjoy getting to know the characters as the story progressed and seeing the cool abilities each one possessed. And finding out the origins of said powers was also very intriguing.
Overall, I enjoyed the book though! I loved the world and the steam-powered technology. I liked most of the characters, even though I could not stand the goddamn love triangle. But I liked the story with the Machinist and I’m looking forward to seeing where things go from here.
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