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Blind Date Book Review: Soulless Gail Carriger

I am not surprised that so many of you have joined in the book blind date, I mean it was a totally irresistible idea. I am really looking forward to seeing what you think of the book you were given, so to kick things off here is my review of my book blind date…

Synopsis from Amazon

Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire – and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Or will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

SOULLESS is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

Soulless Gail Carriger
3 stars

I must confess I probably wouldn’t have chosen this for myself based on the cover or the book blurb, but I found myself enjoying it certain aspects of the story, and some points made me laugh out loud.

What I enjoyed about the book:

Alexia Tarbotti is a great character a strong female lead and it made a nice to change to have a book with vampires and werewolves and NO love triangle bonus points! !

The setting Victorian England is a great setting for this type of story with the steam punk elements and the chaste romance.

The situations in the book are amusing, as is the use of a well applied parasol.

What I didn’t like:

The use of racial stereotypes. Alexia is part Italian which according to the author means that her skin is unfashionably dark, she talks with her hands and is opinionated and bossy.

The Scottish werewolf is gruff and hard to understand when excited.

The English are a delightful enlightened people, well of course we are.

The Americans are overly religious and superstitious, you get the idea.

To be fair, the author could be using these stereotypes as being indicative of the thoughts of the time.

Great literature this is not, a good laugh it is.

Don’t forget that the deadline for the Blind Book Date is March 15th. Make sure you send your reviews to Jen (jenlane3@yahoo.com) to be eligible for the prize! We will publish a special Blind book review post on March 16th that will have the compilation of all the books picked and the reviews (along with the reveal of books that were not selected).