Review of "Blameless" (Spoilers Ahead)

[future_guardian]

So yesterday I finished reading Blameless by Gail Carriger and it left just enough of an impression on me to write a review.  First there's a note concerning the entire series, then I'm going to tell you the good, then I'm going to tell you the bad (because what was bad was really bad), and finally I'll point you back to the note concerning the entire series.

As for the entire series, I'm hooked.  I don't care how much some of Blameless did not work for me.  I'm hooked.  I will follow this series to the end (which is apparently two more books to go).  It's one of the best paranormal romances I've read.  And a note on that: It's other genres/subgenres too.  I just mentioned paranormal romance because it's the genre a lot of people place this book in and it's one of the few good paranormal romances.  So...

Here's what I loved about this book.  It is really progressive (for the time period it's set in as well as today). 

First of all, you have a female lead who buys into the traditions of the time, but she is more than willing to stand out and be a groundbreaker when she disagrees with it.  She is also what I would consider a strong female lead.  Although there's times she allows her friends/husband to rescue her (and if you read this entire book, you'll see that), it seems as though she does it for them, too.  Here's the thing I most like.  In the second and third books, she's pregnant and that's an important plot point.  Ignoring why that is, I love that she isn't like "Oh my god a BABY!"  She calls it "infant inconvenience", which is amusing as well as, well, I like that it's another way she breaks tradition. 

I also want to mention a secondary character.  Female lead has a friend who is an inventor/scientist.  This woman definitely doesn't follow traditions.  It's mentioned frequently that she wears men's clothing and looks nothing like the other women. 

And let's talk about character romantic relationships.  Well, they don't all end well, first of all.  I think that's good, to see that not every character will (or at least, it's unlikely) get paired up at the end.  But here's what I'm really loving.  Not all the relationships are lovey-dovey sappy-happy.  Not all the relationships are straight.  In fact, the relationship between the female lead and male lead is a) dysfunctional...Like, they're married and they love each other and you can see it, but you can also see that she wants her freedom, doesn't necessarily like being tied down, isn't always in love with him, rarely agrees with him, even says she can't stand him...and the list goes on and b) possibly challenged by a budding scientific/romantic relationship between the female lead and her inventor friend.  I'm excited to see what happens.

Here's what I didn't like.  It was progressive except when it wasn't.

I don't want to spoil a book that is good enough to be read all the way through, but I really need to talk about female lead's baby.  It's obvious in the first half of the book that she doesn't want it.  In fact, there's a scene where the inventor talks about miscarriage and she says something along the lines of "Yeah, if he (her husband, who wanted nothing to do with her after the pregnancy was announced) wants to kick me out, I'll do something just as extreme!"  It's not clear if she's referring to a miscarriage herself, but we know she's not in love with this baby.  At the end of the book when she and her husband kiss and make up, she tells him something along the lines of "You can't just love me.  You have to love both of us."  He grudgingly agrees to that and instant happy ending.  It bothered me for a number of reasons.  First of all, the baby in question was talked about in terms of being a "soul stealer" and being dangerous.  Why would a character who already deals with dangerous creatures on a regular basis knowingly bring another into the world?  Second of all, although our female lead didn't go into the realm of "Oh my god, it's a BABY!", there was no evidence until that point that she wanted it.  Third, the entire explanation of a pregnancy that shouldn't have happened was convoluted, like maybe the author wanted that baby but she wasn't sure how to explain it.  While reading that whole "Yes, it can happen...and by the way, we want to cut you open and take that baby and study it and..." I was absolutely lost.

I also didn't see any reason our female lead should've returned to her husband at the end of the book.  The reuniting scene was awesome because she was angry that he didn't believe her when she said "I'm pregnant and it's yours" (this from the second book) and angry that she felt she had to leave his house (or castle or whatever it was) and angry that everything was trying to kill her while he was depressed and drunk and doing absolutely nothing for her or anybody.  Yet somehow she took him back and everything was okay.  I know paranormal romance is one of the genres for this book, but that shouldn't mean the two leads must end up together (ever or again).

Having praised and ranted, I direct you back to my initial statement.  In spite of the serious flaws in this latest book, I will follow the series.  What can I say, I'm hooked.