Week 11: Soulless, by Gail Carriger (5)

 I was expecting this to be more of a social intrigue, Sherlock-Holmes-and-Watson type book than the near bodice ripper it actually was, but Soulless was still such a fun read, and Alexia a great leading character.

Alexia utilizing her hat/hair pins as weapons is a great nod to the actual Hat-Pin-Panic that ended up getting the fashion banned, because women did use them for self defense. Don't think people took it so far as to modify a parasol with buckshot for extra safety, however. Carriger definitely captured the atmosphere of Victorian England - a time of both great conservatism and great progress. I feel like the idea of steampunk comes from that sort of dichotomy in Victorian culture, actually, and I wish Carriger had given us more world building and less (or at least, less prominent) romance. 

Alexia is in a great place to explore all aspects of this alternate version of Victorian London society, and I wonder if the next book in the series will follow through on that. Like, she's alright with throwing out her reputation as a gentlewoman for the sake of some romance, but even with MacDougal being an 'in,' she doesn't try to investigate the science club? Wasn't there a suffragette movement going on around this time? Wouldn't it have been a more interesting dilemma for Alexia to have to choose between being accepted into a peerage she respects, and a society that judges her and calls her 'soul-sucker' but contains the one friend and one lover she has? It wouldn't even have to be a core theme of the novel either, since Alexia certainly doesn't need others to validate her independence (is in fact the embodiment of such), but she's an idle-class woman who hates being idle. 

Still, I don't mind so much that the story went the way it did, because Alexia sort of ends up as the Woman-in-White trope of a Gothic novel, which fits the aesthetic and ambiance, if not really the tone...which tracks, since this is basically a romance set in steampunk London. Is the octopus motif for the mad scientists supposed to be a Cthulu/Lovecraftian reference? Again, I do wish we had gotten more world building, because then there would have been the potential for foreshadowing with them. Siemons isn't scary because he's literally undeveloped until he's suddenly a threat - Alexia fears his homunculus, not him. 

The more I think about it, the more I'm upset at the wasted potential there. The general air of mystery and suspense of Gothic literature gets sidelined for romantic shenanigans, but at least Conall and Alexia are actually a healthy couple who are good for each other and communicate, and not just two characters shoved into roles without any actual chemistry. Twilight has really lowered the bar for acceptable romance in an entire generation of writers, hasn't it.

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