Review of Waistcoats and Weaponry (Finishing School Book 3)

I just finished reading Waistcoats and Weaponry: Number 3 in series (Finishing School) by Gail Carriger.📚

Book three on the Finishing School series and another adventure. Sophronia promises to bring Sidheag back to Scotland.

And the best transport they find is a suspiciously empty train traveling alone on the railroads at night. They soon discover an old acquaintance on the train. And on top, they realize that an unknown dirigible follows the train.

Opinion

Please note that from here on out, the text can contain spoilers of the book.

This book was way more action-oriented than the other two books, which is a bit strange to say as Sophronia was climbing around an airship high above the ground since book one. But for some reason, this book felt a lot more action movie-like. I suspect that the location of the story plays a substantial impact on this feeling.

In this book and the book before, we get some love triangle parts. But it is handled reasonably well, and our main protagonist does not lose her brain over it – unlike in other books, we have a central protagonist mooning after every man in the story.

I was not too fond of that for a long time; you did not know the book’s goal, where it leads to. Expect from the literal answer that they are on a train to Scottland, of course ;-)

I liked the ending where she convinces the Werewolf boss to transform Soap so he can survive the bullet wound he got. I just hope Soap will be happy with her decision, but it was the right choice from what we heard him tell her before. And I think this now also clears up where her heart is, and we don’t get a fallback to the other guy in the next issue.

I love the writing style of Gail Carriger, primarily how she handles inner monologues and finds exciting comparisons. Here is just one example of that:

“Sophronia found herself more worried about how to respond to an imagined Felix kiss–the amount of pressure, what if there was excess saliva, where to put one’s hands?–than she was about dealing out death. Although the concerns were oddly similar–amount of pressure, what if there was excess blood, how to keep one’s gloves clean?”

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