Changeless

A wonderfully witty and somewhat scandalous sequel.

Firstly and most importantly: Gail Carriger's prose is pure delight! Like its predecessor Soulless, this is a book that never seizes to entertain with its eloquence. I must admit had a little bit of an issue with a particular part of the plot (see below), but that never prevented me from enjoying myself tremendously. Truth be told, while this is a book about supernatural mysteries in a strange steampunkish world, it is at its core a comedy of manners and thus what makes it shine and what is most important is not the plot per se but the way the story is told - which is with great and seemingly effortless panache!

SPOILER WARNING:  The next paragraph contains revelations about the main plot!

What bothered me a bit about the plot was how Angelique - of whom Alexia knew as soon as she entered her household by the end of Soulless that she would most likely be a spy for the Westminster hive - was the most likely suspect and in the end indeed the culprit. I kept thinking that there must be a twist coming, because it would be too obvious otherwise. It seemed highly, highly unlikely to me that Angelique was never ever suspected by Alexia throughout the book right until the end. Also, after every assassination attempt I was waiting for some kind of immediate investigation to follow, but the protagonists' capacity to get distracted from that kind of behaviour seemed endless. Still, as mentioned above, I can easily forgive such small matters in the light of the amazing charm and wit of the storytelling.

So, I can highly recommend this book, although I do suggest you have the follow-up novel (Blameless) at hand as well, because the ending will make you want to immediately continue reading on... (I feel for those poor souls, who read the book when it came out and had to wait for the sequel!)


Changeless by Gail Carriger
My goodreads-rating: 4 of 5 stars