A review by snazel
The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis

The good: the attention paid to the details of a life in imperial Rome was really cool. Felt like a place you could visit, that I can picture a life in. I also really liked the characters and would like to read more of this series.

Spoiler

The bad: the repeated insistence that the main character who lived on the street but has always been free had a better life than the man who was born a slave and was freed (but is still legally beholden to his masters) in his late twenties made me raise my eyebrows. A of all — comparing suffering is not a good look, main character, especially if you do it only to tell yourself that you had it worse. If the narrative also does it, I'm also looking at you with your bad look, writer. B of all — psychological effects of slavery have been documented, and are bad. C of all — it really wasn't necessary to make me realize that this character was acting entitled, the fact that he attacked someone else's wife because he thought the fact that she looked at him was flirting did that, book.