The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee (2017)

Monty is too progressive for his times (somewhere in the eighteenth century). He has no interest in being a perfect gentleman, making business deals behind closed doors and only drinking within the same class. Instead he likes his parties wild, all the pretty girls and all the pretty boys too. His father doesn’t. In hopes to put him into shape, his father places him, his best friend Percy, and his sister Felicity on a Tour around the continent. With all this formality, Monty of course turn squeamish and “accidentally” steals a item from a duke that may hold the secret to the world’s first cure-all medicine. Suddenly, the three are on a chase across the continent to retrieve the medicine and it only complicates things that Monty is in love with Percy.

When The Gentleman’s Guide for Vice and Virtue came out I had no interest in reading it. Mostly, I was turned away from it because it’s historical fiction, something I almost never read. I actually end up liking most of my historical reads but they seem so daunting for me. The book also just seemed silly to me, mostly because of the cover (even though the guy on it is super cute!). However, I was seeing so many positive reviews on it that I had to give it a try.

One thing that is really nice about this book is the level of representation throughout the characters. First, there’s our narrator and main character Monty who is bisexual. I can only imagine that if it’s hard to be bisexual in today’s society it would be grueling to have the sexuality three hundred years ago. I give a lot of props to Monty for being so open with his sexuality considering all the ridicule that he receives, specifically from his father. Felicity also received a great deal of criticism from their father because she wouldn’t fit the stereotype of being a woman during that time. Instead of being submissive and learning house duties she demanded to go to school and study medicine. In general, there’s a lot of discussion in the book on what it means to be a man or a woman.

Percy was also a diverse character, both being a man of color and a man with a disability. It was interesting to see the reactions from people of his time towards his overall existence. There were several situations where the characters were turned away from activities because of his skin color and because of his experiences, he internalized these situations into feeling like he was a burden or bringing the group down. He also had epilepsy, something that was hardly understood then and I thought his thoughts on his diagnoses were pretty interesting. On the one hand, he definitely took time to establish that nothing was wrong with him and there was nothing to fix. At the same time, he again internalized negative experiences to the point where he was going to lock himself away to better the lives of others. I don’t have epilepsy so I don’t know how well he was represented but I would love to hear more thoughts on him.

I did have some problems with the actual plot and writing. On the Tour that Monty, Percy, and Felicity go on they travel through most of the continent of Europe but their plans go south when they are separated from their tour guide. They are put in several sticky situations but I found that when it actual got to the situation it either was written poorly or not written at all. Basically, something really bad would happen and before it was solved the story was resumed three or four days later. The reader could easily assume they got out of the situation somehow but isn’t given any details.

In her bio, it does say that Mackenzie Lee has a Bachelor's Degree in a branch of history and writes a note in the back of the book about all the research she put into The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue to make it as historically correct as she could. This also goes towards the ideology around disability during that time.

While I did have some issues with this book, overall I did enjoy it. I really appreciated the diversity in the book and how much effort Lee put into the novel. At times, I found myself getting lost in the story, reading a hundred pages at a time. It’s definitely a book to try out!

4 Stars