Review- The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Title: The Girl in the Steel Corset
Author: Kady Cross
Series: Steampunk Chronicles #1
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: Purchased

In 1897 England, 16-year-old Finley Jayne is convinced she's a freak. 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 that says she's special . . . that she's one of "them."

My thoughts: 

I really want to love steampunk. I do! But steampunk and I have not had the best track record. I read Clockwork Angel before I even knew there was a genre called steampunk and then realizing how much I loved it I decided to read another steampunk novel. So I picked up The Iron Thorn and it was absolutely horrendous which is why the Girl in the Steel Corset sat on my shelves for so many months. I had to get over my trauma! So I was pretty skeptical coming into this book but I’m so glad I finally picked it up!

I really enjoyed the changing of perspectives throughout this book because, honestly, Finley was not my favorite character. From Finley, we get most of the book and we get to see how she is feeling and the way that she has dealt with this alter ego or darkness that she has mysteriously had inside herself her whole life. From Griffin, we get the history of his family and coincidently, Finley’s family as well and see the results of the science experiments their fathers worked on together.

Jack is such a great character! He’s wealthy, handsome, dangerous, dark and mysterious which makes him a perfect bad boy type! But bad boy in the 19th century! So of course, there’s somewhat of a love triangle going on between bad boy Jack and good guy Griffin vying for Finley’s affections. But it’s not an annoying love triangle so it’s really a tossup between the two of them for me.

I really loved Emily and Sam! Emily has a knack for working on machines and discovers that she can even communicate with them. Sam, whom she is in love with, is gravely injured before the story starts and she replaces many of his body parts with machine. They’re so cute because they’re constantly dancing around the chemistry that they have and everyone can see it! I really hope we get to see more Emily and Sam in the next book!

The Girl in the Steel Corset is such a rich story! Not only is the main storyline a mystery about an evil man called the Machinist but the reader also gets a good amount of history and the character’s pasts. I have to give The Girl in the Steel Corset 4.5 hearts for making me fall back in love with steampunk.