Review: Competence

Competence by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gail Carriger is my go-to author for steampunk reads. Her Parasol Protectorate series was insanely addictive, a total joy to read. Her Finishing School series was also a wonderful read, and whilst it wasn’t to the same level as the Parasol Protectorate series it was really enjoyable. In truth, The Custard Protocol series is my least favourite series from the author. For me, The Custard Protocol is lacking in the punch that made me enjoy the prior series so much. It’s enjoyable and has the usual Gail Carriger elements, but it is not what I’d hoped it would be.

Despite how The Custard Protocol series is my least favourite, both Prudence and Imprudence were enjoyable enough for me to round my three-point-five-star ratings up to four-star ratings. With all that was opened up in the first two books in The Custard Protocol, I’d been hoping book three would be a solid four-star rating. Sadly, for me, Competence is my least favourite Gail Carriger read.

Although fun, Competence has a very different feel to it than the other Gail Carriger books I have read. Usually, Gail Carriger offers up a variety of things in her stories – mystery, action, romance, drama, humour, and plenty of supernatural goodies – yet it felt as though Competence removed some of these elements to focus on just one.

You see, Competence was a great read exploring sexuality and identity in the steampunk world. I cannot fault Gail Carriger for diversity and exploring aspects that are often overlooked in these kinds of books. However, I feel as though the focus on this meant other aspects of the story were not as well done as they usually are. In particular, I feel as though the adventure and supernatural worldbuilding was rather lacking. These things were there, but they were minimal, preventing me from loving the story in the way I had hoped to.

As I said, Gail Carriger brought in the diversity and explored it really well, I cannot fault her for this. I simply feel as though the rest of the story was lacking the usual elements that leave me loving Gail Carriger’s books. Hence, Competence was not what I had hoped it would be and disappointed me to some degree.

I’m curious to see what the fourth book in The Custard Protocol series brings, but I’m not as excited about the continuation of this series as I was about the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series.

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