Reviews - The Gentleman's Book of Vices

636 reviews for:

The Gentleman's Book of Vices

Jess Everlee

3.83 AVERAGE

comradeant's review against another edition

4.5

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

natcat's review against another edition

3.0

emotional lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really liked setting this book within the Victorian pornographic publishing industry and Victorian Molly houses, and including drag and characters with complicated gender identities; I feel like these are elements of queer and sexual lives that aren't often touched on in historical romances or indeed fiction generally. This was probably my favourite thing about the book!

I also liked both Charlie (particularly Charlie, what an absurd delight of a character and Miles, and their relationship worked for me. I was a little surprised that all the sex scenes had a lot of explicit buildup and then ended up either fade to black or very metaphorical; it seemed an odd choice given that one of the character's wrote explicit porn! I also wasn't entirely convinced by the portrayal of Charlie

as a deeply unreliable narrator; he's obviously not wild about getting married, but does love Alma platonically, and up until the pointwhere he decides to call off the wedding and then learns he can't without running Alma I did think that the marriage could have worked for both of them! We get told by other characters that his behavior is at least passively suicidal, but I don't know that even with him bring an incredibly unreliable narrator that that is necessarily borne put by the actual story. I did buy the despair and emotions once the plot had passed that point and Charlie did realise he had to go through with the marriage even when he didn' want to, though.

I'd honestly love to read a romance that did end with two characters getting married while being in love with other people, that looks at how you can love people in different ways and that's not a bad thing, and every romance novel ever insisting that true love is betrayed by marrying someone you don't love and continuing a relationship with someone else gets kind of old.

I also didn't really buy the ending. It was nice that Charlie and Miles got their happy ending,

but I didn't really see how it actually worked out for Alma, and while I appreciate that she wasn't just an obstacle in the book, I think she needed to have more of a driving role in the book before she became the absolute pivotal point of the ending. The fact that the main problems are essentially resolved entirely offscreen by Alma and Jo was anticlimactic and kind of disappointing; our main characters just sort of had events happen to them and it worked out, instead of being active participants. I also thought it kind of undermined the stakes that everyone had spent the whole book being worried about - being ruined in reputation or financially, having secrets you couldn't have exposed, potential imprisonment - when everything just kind of worked out.

But all that aside, I did broadly enjoy this book, it was a very pleasant read, and the glimpse into some aspects of history that I feel aren't often touched on in fiction was great.

sophierenee's review against another edition

5.0

I really enjoyed this book as it was not a slow burn and didn’t take the whole book to get to the romance. The ending was so perfect and a great way to wrap up the book.

jugglingpup's review against another edition

3.0

To see a full review check it out here.

It wasn't a bad book, but it didn't really stand out from others. Not a lot of tension or excitement. Ending was too neat. It was a nice soft read.