Curtsies & Conspiracies, Waistcoats & Weaponry

[lightreads]

Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School Series Book 2) And Waistcoats & Weaponry (Finishing School Series Book 3)

3/5. A couple more titles in that young adult alt Victorian urban fantasy finishing spy school series.

There is something not quite right about this series. The adult titles maintain this airy soap bubble of frothy charm, and they make it look effortless. But there's some internal wobble in the young adult set that I can sort of put my finger on, but also sort of can't. Like, okay, in one of these books, our heroine is thinking about someone on the opposite side of a conflict from her, and notes that he's not bad, he's just evil. "Not that there was anything wrong with that." Which typifies this universe, and this series more specifically; it's not about good and evil having any particular valence, because good and evil are really just words that have a lot more to do with how people dress than anything.

That's the charming part.

But – here's where I get a bit hazy about it – but the racism. This is an AU where servants have been replaced largely with mechanized laborers, and yet – it is carelessly implied – there is still an African slave trade, and all that flows from that fact. It is still a scandal for a young lady to fall in love with a black laborer, specifically because of his race more than his class. And I just. Idk.

I guess I just really don't want to be reading a book whose charm is that evil is an esthetic choice, but oh also racism, ha ha. I'm not drawing this connection very clearly, but yeah. No. This series isn't right.

Comments

[buymeaclue]

Oh, I'm so glad it's not just me. I feel like I should love these and people keep recommending them to me and somehow they just hit me not-quite-right.

[the_rck]

Amazon keeps recommending those to me, but I got so very, very angry at some of the author's other work because the characters ticked me off that I haven't wanted to try them. I don't know if I would notice the problems you're pointing out. I like to think that I would, but... I'm not always that quick on the uptake with such things.

But, if I did spot it, I don't think I'd read further.

But if you have cheap, mechanized laborers, why slaves? If slaves are somehow cheaper, then why mechanized laborers at all? Unless maybe there's already a big anti-slavery movement... And if humans are being replaced by machines, what happens to the humans?

If slaves cost more, they might be a luxury item/status symbol of some sort, but that would mean they wouldn't be particularly common which would, in turn, mean that the triangle trade wouldn't work at all the same way.

Hm. I'd actually be interested in a story that explored all of that. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like this book does anything remotely like that.

[lightreads]

Yes, these are exactly the questions I was left asking. Upper class families use mechanicals instead of human servants -- it's a status symbol -- but some menial jobs like shoveling coal in an airship engine room are still done by people, with no explanation as to the economic....technological....cultural? reasons. But if you think about it for more than a few seconds, the whole house of cards falls down. These books are all class fantasies, full of "young ladies of quality," but if a significant chunk of working class jobs were eliminated, that would send a shockwave through the class pyramid, from the ground up. I mean, that's what the industrial revolution

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<p>Yes, these are exactly the questions I was left asking. Upper class families use mechanicals instead of human servants -- it's a status symbol -- but some menial jobs like shoveling coal in an airship engine room are still done by people, with no explanation as to the economic....technological....cultural? reasons. But if you think about it for more than a few seconds, the whole house of cards falls down. These books are all class fantasies, full of "young ladies of quality," but if a significant chunk of working class jobs were eliminated, that would send a shockwave through the class pyramid, from the ground up. I mean, that's what the industrial revolution <i.was</I> in part, and -- and -- and --</p> <p>Yeah, I should not have to think this hard about books that profess to be only for a lark.</p>