The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

Hi all!

My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworm.

So I’ve finished The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee.

When I picked this book up in Waterstones just last week I had no idea what to expect. I honestly didn’t but I picked it up anyway and I haven’t been able to put it down since … literally. This book is brilliant.

I think I mentioned in one of my Bookshelves of a Bookworm that I had downloaded a app that you could record how much you were reading and when. Well, when you finish the book it gives you a very handy little infographic that looks a little something like this …

I think you can break down all the information on there for yourself but just in case …

The golden ribbon basically says that I finished this book from start to finish in two consecutive days. I rated it 5 stars. I took me 5 hours and 26 minutes to read this book start to finish and I averaged 100 pages per hour.

Overall I loved it. I honestly think my favourite part is that it is mainstream LGBTQ fiction. That’s brilliant. In certain ways I was getting fed up of knowing that the girl was always going to get the boy and not wandering whether it was actually the boy who was going to get the boy.

This is a very modern story set in the oldest of settings and somehow the two complement each other so well. It is a page turner start to finish.

I can’t attest to any of it’s historical accuracy and I know that it isn’t meant to be accurate but, as far as my knowledge goes (which isn’t wonderfully far), it is about as accurate as you can get for the period. The Duke of Bourbon was a huge player in the court of Louis XV, which in my mind makes this story entirely plausible.

I like it when stories are plausible. Like I could rent a TARDIS or the Wave Rider for the weekend and travel back in time to meet Percy and Monty and watch them go through all their adventures and then pop in on them when they get their happy ending so that I can scratch that eternal itch of WHAT COMES NEXT!?

Favourite character time: I honestly cannot decide whether it is Percy or Monty. Such opposites. Yet they do say that opposites attract. I see myself in Monty a bit. Not all the drinking and being a rogue. Cripes no! But the not belonging, the never knowing the right thing to say and when you do say something, the instantaneous feeling that you have said the absolutely worst thing you could have said. But on the other hand I understand Percy just as well. He doesn’t belong. He sticks out like a sore thumb. With maybe the exception of Paris I have never felt like I belong anywhere. I don’t stick out, but I feel like I do. And I have secrets and problems I’d rather the whole world didn’t know about. I have things that I have to deal with in my own way.

Would I recommend it to somone else?

Yes. In a heartbeat. I would recommend it to whoever wanted to read it. If I even see someone glance at it in a bookshop I will holler at them to pick it up and read it right there and then it is that good.

Would I read it again?

Yes … but let me read the second one first.

So I do believe that that is my review done. I shall leave you with one final quote from the book. This just made me stop and laugh. I had to jot it down right there and then.

“Just thinking about all that blood.” I nearly shudder. “Doesn’t it make you squeamish?”

“Ladies haven’t the luxury of being squeamish about blood,” she replies, and Percy and I go fantastically red.

p. 264 The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackezi Lee