Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Alexia Tarabotti is not your typical Victorian gentlewoman. Effectively "shelved" (i.e. un-marriageable) for being half-Italian and excessively forthright, Alexia is also a preternatural -- a woman without a soul. Consequently any supernatural creature that touches her loses their abilities and becomes temporarily human. And when Alexia is attacked by a rogue vampire in the middle of her tea, it sets off a series of events which will bring her right into the heart of the Empire's mysterious underbelly... I've stated before that the better a book could have been, the angrier I am in reviews. I'm furious, here. You've been warned. I was so incredibly disappointed by "Soulless." I get very excited whenever an author is brave enough to mix genre and atmospheric elements in their work, so an urban fiction/steampunk/Victorian historical/romance had me reaching out with greedy little hands. All for nothing, because Carriger only seems interested in these elements inasmuch as she can stuff her narrative as full of appealing quirks as possible. Let's break it down. VICTORIAN SETTING: Full of anachronistic language and almost no sense of the city in which the book is set. There were also wince-inducing mistakes, including addressing the Queen as "Highness." (I know Americans have trouble when it comes to royals, but honestly. That one's on the tea towels.) Consequently it reads as if written by someone who did their research via period bodice rippers. STEAMPUNK: Purely cosmetic. A few things were thrown in as running off of steam engines, but there was no investigation of how steampower would change the culture or shape history, and none of it made physical sense. You wondered why the author didn't say "it's magic!" and leave it at that. URBAN FANTASY: Vampires and werewolves, oh my. No mention of why, exactly, Britain had accepted them as citizens or how this affected society at large. Only one original addition to the standard template -- the idea that different people have a varying quantity of "soul." This was absolutely fascinating... up until the point where the author devises an explanation which had all the "oomph" of Lucas' midichlorians. ROMANCE: More echoes of bodice rippers. (Which I cop to really enjoying, when they're not pretending to be something else.) I had no idea the Victorians had such open and accepting attitudes towards sex... wait. And, all right, not everyone gets their fun from truly solid world building, like I do -- and if a story is genuinely interesting, who cares about the trappings? But no luck there, either. The book's "voice" is awkward, since the author has visible trouble handling third person omniscient point-of-view, resulting in a lot of grammatical mistakes and shameless head-hopping. The plot is both confusing and dull, resolving in a deus ex machina. And the characters -- the element which can save almost any book, no matter what else is in shambles -- are so blatantly (sometimes insultingly) stereotypical, you have to wonder if it was done on purpose. We have Lord Maccon, the rough and lusty Scotsman. (Er, Scotswere.) Lord Akeldama, the homosexual aristocrat who oozes foppishness and italicized diminutives, and became a rogue vampire because "no one tells me how to dress!" Alexia's family is socially obsessed and cruel, her best friend is the well meaning but fashion-impaired sidekick. Even Alexia has the depth of a puddle -- her inner monologue and outer dialogue so socially "correct" she almost comes off as a parody, unless her author wants to mix it up by having her act more like Buffy than a well-bred young woman: making out in public venues, thinking her beau's naked chest is "full of pinchability." Consequently this is less a diverse cast of characters and more a collection of attitudes. Seriously, this is what urban fantasy has come to? This is not a good book. I'm not surprised it sells, because it's flash and you should never underestimate the power of Anglophilia. But the best thing about it is the cover art.