The Peculiars - Maureen Doyle McQuerry

Synopsis: This dark and thrilling adventure, with an unforgettable heroine, will captivate fans of steampunk, fantasy, and romance. On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if she, too, is Peculiar. On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House. A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to confront her deepest fears. (From Goodreads)

When I began my Master's program I intended to specialize in colonialism and Victorianism. So within the first fifty pages when this book was screaming colonialism, I was so incredibly excited for where it was going to go. As far as I can figure out, it's a historical re-imagining that takes place in something like the United States, and the colony of Scree, is something like Canada. Which was even more fascinating because Scree took on some qualities of African colonies, especially with proximity to the colonizer and the coal mines. It's not to hard to figure out that the inhabitants of Scree have peculiarities, like wings or extra joints, to clearly mark them as the Other. Not to mention, I have also briefly studied Darwinism and Victorianism so the injections of Darwin and evolution in light of the peculiars was definitely fascinating.

I'll stop being quasi-scholarly now, but I do want to say that there is value in this book. It's just that after my excitement of those first fifty pages, the pace quickly dropped and so did my interest. It took me about eight days to read the whole thing and I think I read about four other books in between. The book is supposed to be about Lena journeying to Scree in order to find her father - which if you think of it like a proper Victorian woman venturing into African colonies, the potential for this story is immense - but Lena spends so much time bumming around in the border town of Knob Knoster (awesome town name). So between the beginning and the end, not a whole lot is going on.

Part of this, I think, is because McQuerry stays pretty true to Victorian convention and social behavior. If this book had been published in the 1800's it probably would have been an exciting adventure story. But because it's published in the 21st century, it gets a little slow. Lena is a very proper woman and she doesn't assert herself until late in the book, so she's spending a lot of time going with the flow and doing what is asked of her. I could probably go on a whole other scholarly thing about the treatment of women, especially peculiar women, but I won't subject you to that. I'll just say that I didn't really care for the way women are portrayed here. For example, if you're a women you must only want adventure if you are in fact, half peculiar. But, again, that can go with the fact that we're talking about Victorian society.

So very long story short, this book moves slow and it's flawed, but there's a lot in it that is very interesting. If you're reading for fun, I would recommend going in another direction, but if some of the things I talk about here interest you, there might be something in this book that is worth your while.