Hannah's Reviews > The Girl in the Steel Corset

That's the good thing about coming into a series with little to no expectations (thanks to some major adjustments after reading a large number of negative reviews) - I found The Girl in the Steel Corset quite a fun ride, despite obvious flaws.

After the introduction to Finley in the prequel short, The Strange Case of Finley Jayne, we jump straight into the action here as the increasingly severe swings between the "good" and "dark" sides of our heroine's personality gets her into tremendous trouble. She meets Griffin (the "Duke of Greythorne" that was referenced quite pointedly once or twice in passing in the prequel) and his friends, Sam and Emily, and realizes that she isn't the only one in town who has unnatural abilities.

There's plenty of action - speeding vehicles, fight scenes (in which Finley figures prominently, due to her increased strength while in "dark mode"), killer machines and so on - I was certainly never bored. Her group of new friends are also interesting as well as likeable; I particularly liked Griffin, whose strategic ability and control of the Aether was rather fascinating. And of course we can't forget Jack Dandy, a less-than-savory but eminently charming acquaintance who takes a shine to Finley's darker side. This also means that we have the standard YA love triangle, but surprisingly I found that I didn't mind it so much in this case. While I would generally damn its inclusion, it was admittedly rather enjoyable to see Griffin's brand of badly-disguised jealousy and two love interests made reasonable sense, considering Finley's dual personalities.

As noted before, however, the book is not without its share of problems. The first and most glaring is the disconnect between the Finley from the prequel short story and the one we're reacquainted with in this novel. Finley never once references the events in the prequel, despite their obvious importance. In fact, they seem never to have happened as far as Finley was concerned - she begins Steel Corset with none of the ability to integrate with the upper class that she'd displayed in the prequel. While she had previously been quite confident amongst the gentry, I was startled at how downtrodden and jaded she'd sounded in her initial exchanges with Griffin. Considering her previous friendship with Lady Phoebe and Lady Morton, it's hardly believable that one bad encounter with a nasty young nobleman would have shattered Finley's self-esteem so thoroughly that she would suddenly believe that she was undeserving and act suspicious of kind treatment from the upper class!

Secondly, I'm happy to suspend belief to a certain extent, but I draw the line at the impossible combination of unbelievably advanced mechanical inventions (Instant cameras? Really?), strangely modern sensibilities and the Victorian setting, complete with its rigid class structures. The speech patterns are particularly jarring; not only do we have terrible fake Cockney, but Finley shows a complete lack of awareness as she speaks as a well-bred upper class lady would in one moment and a street urchin in the next. Worse, there's nothing about Griffin that would suggest that he was a duke, other than constant author reminders of his rank - not once have I seen a believable display of high class upbringing. It's particularly ridiculous when Griffin introduces himself to people as "Griffin King, the Duke of Greythorne" (as if he would have addressed himself that way!) and people around him constantly refer to him by first-last name basis, when his last name should never have come into the equation at all. It's basically a poor attempt at imitating period etiquette.

Other problems include Sam and Lady Cordelia, both of whom appear to have regular personality transplants (they're raging lunatics without reason and then BAM, plot calls for them to go back to being nice people), as well as Jack Dandy's illogical behaviour around Finley - on their second meeting, he's already commenting to her that she'll have to choose between him and Griffin one day even though he's content to play the game meanwhile. The author should also pay more attention to the names she uses for her characters or hire a better editor, because characters are frequently referred to/addressed with different names within the same chapter or even within the same conversation. In Chapter 6, for example, Griffin address Lady Cordelia by name in private conversation, but right afterwards we are told that "Lady Marsden looked both mollified and embarrassed..." Only by process of elimination do you figure out that Lady Marsden and Cordelia are one and the same. To top it off, Finley's narration following immediately afterwards refers to the same lady as "Cordelia King-Ashworth." By God.

Despite the rather blatant flaws, these were problems that only caused me minor irritation and thankfully had little affect on my overall enjoyment of the book. My lowered expectations of this book certainly helped, I think, and this is a book that is best enjoyed with the knowledge that it brings interesting steampunk elements, characters and action to the table while being far from perfect.