There has been a trend, or a trendlet I suppose, of YA novels in a sort of faux Victorian setting. Earlier, GRs suggested calling the specfic version of this stuff Space Operetta or Steamtech (both of which I like more than steampunk for the stuff that has no punk in it at all), but that was for the ones with spaceships in them, all brass and wood and glass and valves with needles and so on. Or ornithopters. Love ornithopters.
The Silver Spoon of Solomon Snow has none of that stuff. It’s pure Boys’ Own Adventure, but set in storybook Victorian England, with no special technology or magic, just the occasional silver spoon or linen napkin or egregious coincidence.
I have to say the book wasn’t quite as good as I wanted it to be—there were certainly a bunch of entertaining things in it, and for a book as brief and light as this one, I suppose there is no call to complain about the lack of thump. Still, I found myself unsatisfied. I’m not sure why.
I am also, alas, not entirely sure that I am correctly remembering the book. I read three or four YA books in quick succession, and I think this was the one that left me unsatisfied. But honestly? This whole bookblogging business works better if I blog books soon after finishing them. I am now nineteen books behind, and I’m not sure I see much of a point in finishing them. On the other hand, I can’t quite see my way clear to giving up the log halfway through a year. At least I will make a note of what I have think I have read, anyway.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Perhaps you should try book tweeting?
Fall back on the old compare and contrast, and you can get through the backlog in half the number of posts.