Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

I really enjoyed these characters and the historical depiction of both race issues and lgbtqia issues. It was less jarring to hear some of the arguments against being gay out of historical mouths than when you see them in modern social media posts. You can forgive their ignorance here, at a time when sexuality wasn’t really a thing and it was perceived as a sinful Choice instead of a piece of who you are.

The characters are lovable and evolve nicely through the book.

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nonnavlis's review against another edition

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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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