shadon 's review for:

The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

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Walking into hell is always the easiest part. It’s the coming back that takes work.

A near flawless conclusion to a beloved series, that sees all of my favorite characters returning for one last adventure. 

With it's shockingly relatable protagonist who is suffering with a storm of anxiety and compulsive thoughts, Adrian Montague at once drew me in. He is endearing and understandable, a mirror image of my own ills. Almost everything he said or did perfectly captured the anxious experience, with his own mind seemingly against him and him helpless against the onslaught. This is what it feels like. This is how isolating and miserable and deflating it all is.

Because of the focus on Adrian's mental health, this book is much less funny than the previous two novels. Most of the humour came from Monty and Feleicity themselves and Adrian is struggling to breathe, let alone crack witty jokes. Even his awkwardness is not funny, it's just sad because it causes him such inner turmoil. I didn't want him to be awkward, I wanted him to get better.

While it was disappointing at first to not have the laughter I had come to expect, I liked Adrian so much that I got over it. And there are some bright spots of humour, mostly when the Montague Siblings come together and Monty is as charming as ever.

I want to belong to myself. I want to stop feeling worthless and pointless and hopeless and less, less, less than everyone else around me.

Seeing an adult Monty, Percy and Felicity made me ascend to an ethereal plane. Every time they were reintroduced through Adrian's eyes, I felt such a bright spark of joy. Meeting the whole cast again after so much time had passed and seeing their futures made me feel like a proud mother. Everything worked out and they got to live their dreams, even if we only saw the tail end of this. Annoyingly though, they didn't always act their ages, especially one Monty. By my math, he was 38 years old and still acting as petulant and pouty as when he was a teenager. 

It was begrudgingly endearing when be was younger and I liked that he was still the same scoundrel at heart but it did not seem like much time had passed at all. It seemed more like 5 years had passed rather than 18.  Monty had his reasons for his behavior and cruelty toward his brother (whic  he does explain and apologse for) but most of the time I was just thinking, "This grown ass man is bullying his teenage baby brother." None of that nonsemse from Felicity though which is why she's the best of them. 

The adventure the siblings embark on is perhaps the weakest in this trilogy. Of course because of Adrian's journey, the focus is less on the adventure itself and more on his journey to heal, grow and reconcile his mother's mysterious  past with her death. The story of the spyglass and the Flying Dutchma  was initially interesting,  and there were some standout moments but it never reached the highs of Monty's Tour or Felicity's quest to be a doctor. 

But I will do my best to keep walking out of the darkness. I will let it all happen to me, beauty and terror and love and hate and ugliness and anger and fear. I know that no feeling is final, and that fear only wins when I stop fighting.

The Montague's relationship with each other were the heart of those story and it was incredibly fitting that in this last novel, they all came together. Everything involving them was emotional and heartfelt. Their secrets, dreams and heartbreaks were all laid out in the open. They fought, quarreled and hurt each other but they formed an unbreakable bond. In that final chapter where they all came together, I shed a tear. 

A brilliant farewell to a world and characters I have completely fallen in love with. An excellent examination of anxiety, compulsions and the struggle to fit in and feel human. Adrian's thoughts were my thoughts and I loved him so dearly. Very rarely is the representation of mental illness so accurate and striking. I felt understood. And Adrian's final letter to his mother felt like it came right from head. 

More than anything, an inspiring and hopeful tale of found family and rising above your mental struggles with all the whimsy, fantasy and historical flair of it's predecessors. I will miss the Montague's and their shenanigans.

Oh, but there wasn't enough Percy. There was almost no Percy at all which should be illegal. I hate how little we see him past the first novel, after I had fallen so thoroughly in love with him. It was tantamount to torture.