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Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
12 reviews
madicana's review
- 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
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Biphobia, Mental illness, Child abuse, and Homophobia
voidature's review against another edition
- 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
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.
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
- 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
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
- 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
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
- 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
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.
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
- 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
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
- 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
<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.
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
- 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
Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Mental illness, and Homophobia
crufts's review
- 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
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 did find it a tad contrived that
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
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.
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
- 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
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