Review: The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
Published: May 24, 2011
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 480
Series: Steampunk Chronicles #1
My Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Synopsis: In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finely Jayne had 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 and says she's special, says she's one of them . The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets, against the wises of his band of misfits. And Finley thinks she might finally be a part of something, finally fit in-until a criminal mastermind known as Machinist threatens to tear the group apart...

My Review: So when I went to the bookstore the other day I was looking around the YA section when I came across this book. It was hidden behind a bunch of other books so I'm not even sure how I saw it in the first place. I picked it up and once I read the back I was hooked. I needed to read this book.

I guess my expectations for this book were too high because I was disappointed. Very disappointed.

Apparently the book I have has a bonus book called The Strange Case of Finely Jayne but instead of being in the back of the book it's before the actual book so I read it before the actual book not knowing that it was a bonus book. Man, was that bonus book boring. I almost gave up on the book right there but instead I kept reading because I had this hope that the book would get much better. And it did after the bonus book was over. Don't read that bonus book. Even if you liked The Girl in the Steel Corset.

So the main character Finely Jayne is the daughter of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. You would think that being the daughter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would make Finely a very interesting character but she's not. I just didn't like her, whenever the book was from her POV it seemed to drag even when she was her "shadow" half. She also is part of a love triangle. A love triangle with the Duke of Greythorne and a crime lord. Jack Dandy (the crime lord) had absolutely no role in the book, he was just Finely's love interest. At least Griffin (the Duke) wasn't just there as a love interest. He was one of the only characters I liked in this book.

Also the other characters like Sam and Cordeila had some issues. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't like Sam. I just couldn't. I didn't understand his problem with his friends saving him. Cordeila is telekinetic and telepathic but it never explains how this happened and it also never explains how Jasper can run extremely fast. That information just appears to be missing.

The book was also extremely predictable. From the moment Sam first started talking to Leon in that bar I knew he was the Machinist. It was way too obvious to me. The book just seemed to scream that Leon was the Machinist, but it took them almost the entire book to figure it out. They also couldn't seem to figure out what he was planning. It was fairly obvious when Emily pointed out that the wax figure of the queen was missing its eyes and that they had taken measurements of the face and taken its clothing.

Often while reading this I had to reread sentences or even entire paragraphs before they made sense in my mind. Sometimes it would also just switch POVs without any warning, leaving me confused for a few moments.

I did like the idea of the Organites and the idea of Finely being the daughter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide but it could have been so much better. Despite everything I've said I actually somewhat liked this book after more than halfway through it but I didn't like it that much. I haven't had much experience with Steampunk books but I'm willing to bet that this will not be my last and I'll probably end up reading The Girl in the Clockwork Collar just because I actually like Jasper and the next one sounds much more interesting.