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A review by ciuli
The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
3.0
3/5
I went into this book fully conscious that I wasn't the biggest Felicity fan. I didn't really like her in the first book but I was like "A book with an aro-ace main character, with pirates and adventures!", I was curious about it and decided to give it chance. I'm sad to say that I kind of got what I was expecting, which isn't much.
Felicity is a brat. I know she acts the way she does because she is ambitious, and she's a feminist, and the level of male-female inequality in 1700 was just unbelievably high, buuut she's a brat. At the beginning of the book, she only cares about herself and her ambitions, not caring about how her actions or what she says reflects on others. She's always saying that she's so different from pre-tour Monty, but she's really not. She's only smarter, but she's very much self-centered. She thinks she's one of a kind, as if every other female of that era is just a blonde bimbo with no ambition. I'm sorry, but the way she treated Johanna is just wrong.
I loved Johanna. I love that she didn't put up with Felicity's superiority complex anymore and she just told her to hop off that pedestal she put herself on.
I am aware that throughout this book we are shown Felicity's growth, but considering this is the second book in a series, I was hoping that some of that growth had already happened in-between the time the two books are set, and we didn't have to start from the beginning all over again. I think this was probably done because the two books can be read as stand-alones, but having read the first one it felt repetitive.
That leads me to focus on another point: the repetitiveness of this book. We get that Felicity is smart. We get that she has read loads of medical books and stuff. That doesn't mean that we need endless specific explanations every single time something medical is involved. It's fine once, twice I already start to wrinkle my nose, the third time is just boring.
Considering the title, I was definitely expecting a more exciting plot. Up until three quarters of the book, nothing really happens, we just have first Felicity and then Johanna and Sim, moving from one city to the other, and that's it. The only bit of action we got is right at the end, and that's too little too late for me. Thank God for Monty and Percy though. I think the author too knows that the book was getting boring and she reintroduced them.
All this said, I know I only highlighted the aspects I didnt like, but that doesn't mean it was a total waste of time. The cast of characters and its diversity merits a shout-out, considering there is a aro-ace main character and a muslim lesbian or bi side character. It was a pleasant and easy read but as Marie Kondo would say (lol) it didn't spark joy in me.
I went into this book fully conscious that I wasn't the biggest Felicity fan. I didn't really like her in the first book but I was like "A book with an aro-ace main character, with pirates and adventures!", I was curious about it and decided to give it chance. I'm sad to say that I kind of got what I was expecting, which isn't much.
Felicity is a brat. I know she acts the way she does because she is ambitious, and she's a feminist, and the level of male-female inequality in 1700 was just unbelievably high, buuut she's a brat. At the beginning of the book, she only cares about herself and her ambitions, not caring about how her actions or what she says reflects on others. She's always saying that she's so different from pre-tour Monty, but she's really not. She's only smarter, but she's very much self-centered. She thinks she's one of a kind, as if every other female of that era is just a blonde bimbo with no ambition. I'm sorry, but the way she treated Johanna is just wrong.
I loved Johanna. I love that she didn't put up with Felicity's superiority complex anymore and she just told her to hop off that pedestal she put herself on.
I am aware that throughout this book we are shown Felicity's growth, but considering this is the second book in a series, I was hoping that some of that growth had already happened in-between the time the two books are set, and we didn't have to start from the beginning all over again. I think this was probably done because the two books can be read as stand-alones, but having read the first one it felt repetitive.
That leads me to focus on another point: the repetitiveness of this book. We get that Felicity is smart. We get that she has read loads of medical books and stuff. That doesn't mean that we need endless specific explanations every single time something medical is involved. It's fine once, twice I already start to wrinkle my nose, the third time is just boring.
Considering the title, I was definitely expecting a more exciting plot. Up until three quarters of the book, nothing really happens, we just have first Felicity and then Johanna and Sim, moving from one city to the other, and that's it. The only bit of action we got is right at the end, and that's too little too late for me. Thank God for Monty and Percy though. I think the author too knows that the book was getting boring and she reintroduced them.
All this said, I know I only highlighted the aspects I didnt like, but that doesn't mean it was a total waste of time. The cast of characters and its diversity merits a shout-out, considering there is a aro-ace main character and a muslim lesbian or bi side character. It was a pleasant and easy read but as Marie Kondo would say (lol) it didn't spark joy in me.