Reviews with content warning for Death - Changeless

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Changeless by Gail Carriger

6 reviews

ramakn22's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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thereadinghammock's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I love the Parasol Protectorate universe Gail has created in these books. The characters are hilarious, delightful, and run the gamut of personalities and persuasions. And a mystery that can stump even the intrepid Alexia Maccon? A juicy story indeed! Following the trail of a "mass humanity" incident to her husband's old pack in the Scottish highlands revisits a fun character from the Finishing School series (years later, mind you) and introduces several other new and fascinating characters along the way. Madame LeFoux is a delightful conundrum to Alexia, and watching the Frenchwoman flummox Alexia with her flirting was fun to watch.

The mass humanity incident being related to a mummified preternatural was a fun twist, but what threw me for a loop was that ending revelation and argument that followed. While I do fully understand Connell's confusion and disbelief that the child could be his, the vitriol he spat at Alexia and his dismissal of anything she might say to defend herself was horrific and left such a sour taste in my mouth as a reader.

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marsh_mall0w's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

CHANGLESS is a pretty good book which is utterly ruined by a terrible ending.

CHANGELESS begins with annoyances and crises, the regiment has appeared on the lawn and a mysterious plague of mortality has fallen upon London’s normally supernatural residents. This introduces Madame Lefoux, a hat-maker and inventor who affects masculine dress as a matter of course. There’s an entirely new storyline related to Madame Lefoux, Ivy, the mortality plague, and a sudden need to travel to Scotland. This doesn’t wrap up anything left hanging, though it is nice to see Alexia and Conall as a married couple. Several things related to the mortality issue and Conall’s past are introduced and resolved. This isn’t the final book and has a very sudden cliffhanger which demands to be addressed in the next volume. Alexia is still the main narrator and her voice is consistent, though there are some sections following other characters. I like Madame Lefoux, she's a great addition to the ensemble of characters.

There’s enough backstory given that this could mostly make sense if someone started here and hadn’t read the first book, but this book thrives on banter and relationships, so it will be much more impactful for anyone who started the series at the beginning.

Because the setting is based on real-life Victorian England (and Scotland), but with supernatural elements and steampunk, it ends up engaging with Great Britain as an empire and not just a country. The regiment which shows up was returning from serving the British military in India, apparently some kind of colonialist possession, though I’m not sure how precisely it aligns with the real trajectory of that situation. There are also mentions of British military presence in North Africa. The main characters are supernatural representatives in Queen Victoria’s government, but this is the first real reference to British colonization in the series.

I hate the ending. It’s technically in keeping with the various characters’ personalities, but it’s sudden and stressful and I’ve never liked it.

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mjwhitlock18's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

Second in the series, this easy to read, humorous, paranormal steampunk fantasy sees Alexia settling into life with Lord Maccon, all while trying to solve a mysterious change in the supernatural set. Not quite as entertaining as the first book, but still a great sense of humor We see more of Alexia’s pragmatism, along with the some favorite side characters from the last book and some great new additions (you know I love a sapphic, masculine-dressing, inventor/scientist). Ivy was even more annoying in this one, to the point that it brought me out of the story at times. The not-so-surprising surprise ending left me intrigued and also angry with one gruff werewolf.

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

4.0

In case you misunderstood the back cover as badly as me, Lord Maccon does not poof into vanishment - he just leaves abruptly, busy dealing with a lot of important nonsense and feeling far too busy to tell his dear wife about it. Alexia is not, in fact, hunting a magically vanished husband in this book. She's hunting the answer to a completely different mystery, and discovering her husband in Scotland is not her main purpose for going there.

Since Alexia and Lord Maccon are already married, this book relies more on the paranormal and mystery aspects than the romance (although there are plenty of sexual moments included). Personally, I enjoyed that quite a lot. This book has the rest of the London werewolf pack returning from war with a brief but delightful moment of don't-you-know-who-I-am, traveling to Scotland to meet the werewolf pack there and finding out why Lord Maccon left them twenty years ago, some new fun steampunkesque technology, and a lot more information about how werewolves, ghosts, and preternaturals work.

The characters were just as delightful as in Soulless. Alexia was her same adventurous tact-be-damned self, her friend Ivy still had her dramatics and horrible hats, Lord Maccon was still ... well, Lord Maccon, gruff werewolf and unintentional fashion disaster. There was also the introduction of Madame Lefoux, a French inventor, and Alexia's maid Angelique, who received only a brief mention in book one. There is also Sidheag the Alpha female of the Scotland pack, who I'm 99% sure is Sidheag from the Finishing School books.

I very much enjoyed the mystery and learning more about the supernatural elements of this world. But I'm not sure I'm going to read book three. Mainly because of the ending. The mystery is solved, the person(s) responsible are dealt with, and then in the last few pages there is yet another twist that leaves Alexia in a distinctly not-very-good position. I am absolutely sure it gets better before the end of book three, because Alexia is not the kind of person who lets things like this keep her down, but I actually find myself fond of Alexia and don't want to read about her in a terrible situation with few allies. I may come back to it eventually, because at least books four and five seem to have positive things happen and I do want to see more of Alexia, but right now I care about her too much to want to jump right into reading about bad things happening to her.

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