Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

12 reviews

madicana's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Biphobia, Mental illness, Child abuse, and Homophobia

voidature's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.5

i don’t know how to start this review tbh. there’s a lot to say and none of it is very good. i only gave it two stars because the writing itself is good, but she as a white woman had no business writing this kind of story with the amount of racial slurs used and the general theme, and i spent the entire time while reading it beside myself with mixed feelings.

it’s disgusting to ship percy with monty and it’s gross that they still get together at the end given how monty treats him throughout the novel but especially in the beginning—because this is the monty percy would have been exposed to since they were boys. a monty who will say racist things to him when he gets upset, percy who is supposedly his best friend, and even despite that percy is so patient with him and has to *teach* him about racism even when monty barely makes an effort to understand or accept that he has a white savior complex.

monty went through a huge character growth arc, but percy didn’t have the same kind of growth, and monty went through that growth at the expense of percy’s dignity, being written with an illness, who was used as a prop for him. not to mention scipio’s crew, who were also used as props to help monty grow.

i have no idea how or why this book is so highly rated given the contents of it and how the author chooses to write her characters. and after reading the reviews and finding out she’s transphobic as well, i’m unsurprised to find that my gut feeling about this book reading the way it does is correct.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Alcohol, Slavery, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Alcoholism, Racial slurs, Racism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, and Mental illness

hollowhallow13's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Violence, Physical abuse, Addiction, Chronic illness, Gun violence, Homophobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Racism

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, and Suicidal thoughts

littlesnowcloud's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.5

Significantly heavier in topic than the summary blurb suggests, with a bit more magic involved than expected. A good read with good characters. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Death, Alcoholism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Classism, Racism, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Alcohol, Sexism, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse

Minor: Infidelity

nonnavlis's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This was such a delightful read! The writing style of the author is so marvellous. It's not at all short on evocative prose, but never the sort that trips you up; it reads so smoothly and is also quite witty. I'm someone who is just branching into more modern writing and often struggle with a dislike of the style of it, but this was great. The completely unrestrained queerness was also very delightful and the characters are engaging. It's unrealistic in the good way--you probably won't see the story beats coming and they're a bit silly when they do, but in a way you want to happen because it's all the more fun.

It was also lovely to see some unexpected disability representation later in the story! (I am not considering this is a spoiler as it's something I would've wanted to know as a disabled person, but sorry if anyone feels a bit cheated in my saying so).

The only problem I had with it was the handling of racial tension within the story. I respect the author's desire for some diversity and their certainly earnest and well-meant attempt at handling it, but it did feel pretty simplistic and glossed over in a way I expect a reader of colour would find even more awkward/uncomfortable than I did as a white reader. It's unfortunately one of those stories that probably would've benefited heavily from some sensitivity readers that it seems it did not have. The fact that the author even has an author's note chapter at the end of the book dedicated to summarizing her historical research and influences (where she refers to slave-owners as masters rather than enslavers which felt to me like a pretty glaring sign of lack of knowledge in this area), but still fumbled this as much as she did is why I've removed half a star from my rating. I did see after finishing that this is part of a series so I'm hoping it will be handled better in future stories, since we all have room to learn.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Slavery, Vomit, Kidnapping, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexism, Colonisation, Ableism, Classism, Blood, Cursing, Sexual content, and Racism

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, and Infidelity

20sidedbi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Racism, Classism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, and Homophobia

Moderate: Ableism, Slavery, Misogyny, Death, Grief, Violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, and Medical content

Minor: Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Colonisation, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Infidelity, Xenophobia, and Cursing

a_bloom's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

The writing is absolutely PHENOMENAL and so freaky funny. It's also heart reaching, but you can always kinda see it coming. It's technically a long book but something you could get through in a couple of days. 


<Spoiler>It also talks about a lot of interesting topics that were seen as taboo (although some of them aren't brought to a whole lot of detail considering the whole book is told from the perspective of a traumatized white teen boy who's an Earls son... But he slowly starts to learn, grow, and mature as he keeps ALMOST DYING.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Biphobia, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Outing, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, Racism, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Violence, and Vomit

anime917's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring 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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Mental illness, and Homophobia

crufts's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

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

4.75

Entertaining, heartwarming, all-round a delightful and exciting story.

Our charismatic-scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold protagonist (Henry "Monty" Montague), an 18-year-old English lord, embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe with sister Felicity and best friend Percy. Naturally, it all goes completely off the rails. In the process Monty matures considerably, and forever changes his standing regarding his father and his travelling companions.

There's so much to enjoy about the book:

• Interesting setting. Assuming that the depiction of the 1700s is accurate, I thought it was fascinating how there was a strong England/France alliance with tourists visiting frequently from both sides, even though everyone was relying on communicating by letters. There were already English banks, embassies, etc in France, which did not intend to become French but rather to remain there as international institutions.
• Good bisexual representation! Monty's crush on Percy is a main plot thread, but his attraction to women isn't dismissed or trivialized. He is not "really" gay, he is really bisexual.
• Fabulous audiobook narration, especially of the French villain's voice.
• A somewhat magical plot device is foreshadowed well in advance and didn't feel like a huge surprise or genre-breaker when it appears.
  
  

I notice that some of the reviewers here can't stand Monty's personality, finding him to be too much of a "rake" (scoundrel) and too inconsiderate to his travelling companions. I agree that Monty is an ass, but I also thought this was balanced out pretty well by the fact that he's constantly getting payback for his misbehaviour from not only the world at large, but also from Felicity and Percy themselves.

I did find it a tad contrived that

despite their long-held mutual crush on eachother, Monty and Percy didn't get the truth out between them until the end.

The main obstruction is established at the beginning,  when Percy asks Monty if them kissing was all just a lark, and a flustered Monty replies "No... yes!". Disappointed and not wanting to just be yet another of Monty's flings, Percy ends the situation.

This was hard to believe because (a) Monty is good at reading people, as seen when he chats up a bank clerk later in the book, and should have been able to piece together Percy's reaction; and (b) Monty wanted to tell Percy about his feelings for years and believed it to be Real Love™, not just a lark.

I think it would've been more believable if, for example:
- When asked if was just a lark, Monty replies something cautious like "I dunno, what do you want it to be?". Percy could then interpret this pessimistically ("He's just humouring me") and the plot could continue as before.
- It could be more obvious (perhaps just to the reader, if not to Monty himself) that Percy ended the situation because he's not a one-night-fling sort of guy and believed that Monty's nature would never change. For example, Percy might ask Monty about his fling with the girl at Versailles and express his opinion that he could never have a one-off relationship like that with someone, even if he loved them

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I also found the writing style to be overly flowery at times, with a bit too much detail about specific thoughts or particular actions.
However, I still found The Gentleman's Guide to be an excellent book and would certainly recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Blood, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing and Racism

Minor: Death of parent

Period-typical sexism, homophobia, biphobia, etc due to the 1700s setting.

Violence, blood, medical content: Appears during and after action scenes during the book. Also, a main character has epileptic fits.

Domestic abuse, bullying: Against the protagonist from his father, resulting in what is likely PTSD.

Racism: Against one of the later allies in the book.

Death of parent: Suffered by a pair of minor characters.

elleandon's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Ableism, Abandonment, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Classism, Colonisation, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Outing, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Vomit, and Racism