Manners & Mutiny by Gail CarrigerLittle, Brown and Company, 2016 (Originally 2015)

I’ve been making my way through Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series over the past four years, picking one up when I found myself wanting something light and fun, and this fourth and final book was probably my favorite. As with the others, we’re in steampunk/paranormal alternate England in the 1850s; our heroine, Sophronia, is a student at Miss Geraldine’s Quality Finishing School for Young Ladies, where the students are actually getting a training in espionage as well as in manners. Throughout the series, Sophronia and her friends have been trying to foil the dastardly plans of an anti-paranormal group called the Picklemen, so it’s not surprising that the Picklemen feature heavily in this book. But the Picklemen and their plans were less interesting to me than Sophronia and her friends: I love how the book opens with a ball where the students have been told they have to be dressed as and in character as each other, with Sophronia assigned to be the more retiring Agatha, Agatha assigned to be their bubbly friend Dimity, Dimity assigned to be class Mean Girl Preshea, and Preshea assigned to be Sophronia herself. I like, too, the scenes we get of the girls in London over their Christmas holidays, and the bits of humor, like this: “Dimity had firm opinions on cucumber, which she felt was nothing more than slimy, embarrassingly shaped water and should never, under any circumstances, be presented at table” (131). And I like how in this book, Sophronia finally figures out/admits to herself who she wants to be with, romantically speaking. All those bits are more satisfying to me than the action-adventure portion of the plot, though the action is well-written and I found myself caught up in it, too.