Carriger, Gail (Soulless)

I am faintly disturbed that this book won ALA's Alex award (for books of special interest to 12-18 year olds). That seems a mite too young to be reading a book like this. But what do I know? Life has changed immeasurably since I was a kid.

Obviously, this is pretty fluffy nonsense, but it's fluffy in such a decided manner. Let's build a Victorian England, but make werewolves and vampires a real, recognized, and accepted part of society. And then add a woman who can take all those supernatural powers away. Plus! Let's just make it a romance, while we're at it. The author is deliberate in her world-building, and confident in her ability to make us live inside that world. Consequently, a delightful read.

The one thing I did not enjoy was that the scientists were the bad guys. There are a few nods to these only being the crazy scientists, not the normal ones, but there is still a highly unfortunate undertone to all of it. Especially if this book is designed for a particularly young age group. In the same way that watching Prometheus drove me nuts because scientists would never just reach out and prod something on an alien planet, it drives me nuts when the evil scientist is the only bad thing you read about in a book. Characterize scientists correctly, please!