2017 book 114

Mackenzi Lee's The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
I have seen this book getting a lot of buzz, and was excited to read a historical romance centered on a young bisexual lord who is secretly in love with his biracial best friend, and is about to embark on a year-long tour of the Continent with said friend and with his younger sister (who yearns to be a scholar). BUT the plot here is just beyond far-fetched! Like you can excuse one or two completely ridiculous plot elements, I guess, but once you've hit four and climbing, there is no reason to be invested in the story anymore. (And that is not even getting into the fact that an honest conversation would clear up 100 percent of the angst here--my pet peeve in a book.) I thought this was going to be a cute romance, but it is actually a very silly historical action-packed novel that happens to have some cute romance in it. I was much more interested in the characters dealing with historically-accurate attitudes toward their sexualities and ethnicities than in how they were going to get out of their 10th stupid scrape. And they do get into some stupid scrapes, because the main character is frequently very stupid. Just a frustrating book. I loved the sister, though, and am somewhat tempted to read the inevitable sequel about her. B.