THE GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE, a New Adult MM historical romantic novel

THE GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE
MACKENZI LEE
Katherine Tegen Books
$8.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men.

But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT FROM MY OLD PAL, NORA. THANK YOU, YOU SWEET THING. *SMOOCH*

My Review: My feelings about this read have percolated for a long time now. I didn't like it much at first. I felt radically impatient by page 346 of 501 (last story-page; there's a meaty Author's Note to take us to page 513). I know that stonking great wodges of hard-bound paper are very much in fashion in this market segment, and that the world is a better place because the books that are so huge are also stuffed with People of Color (and a gay PoC in this iteration!), women with Dreams (medicine as a woman's career makes sense to me, since every mother I've ever known plays doctor constantly to all her kids plus their dad), and persons belonging to sexual minorities (Henry is bisexual). These are all excellent things! I want these messages to be heavily represented in the world! I just don't want to spend quite so much time with them. I am old, and there are fewer eyeblinks ahead for me than for the proper audience.

That audience, judging from the Kindle highlights I've seen, is eagerly absorbing the author's ideas. Literally everyone in the world loves this quote:

The great tragic love story of Percy and me is neither great nor truly a love story, and is tragic only for its single-sidedness. It is also not an epic monolith that has plagued me since boyhood, as might be expected. Rather, it is simply the tale of how two people can be important to each other their whole lives, and then, one morning, quite without meaning to, one of them wakes to find that importance has been magnified into a sudden and intense desire to put his tongue in the other’s mouth.

I myownself think it's mildly amusing, even modestly witty, but...somehow I don't ring like a bell when I read it, unlike an absurdly large four-digit number of other highlighters.

Then again, as hinted at above, I'm over sixty. This fact clearly needs to be brought to my attention more often. I don't seem to be able (or perhaps "willing" is more accurate) to retain my focus on the gargantuan gulf that separates me from the intended audience of this story.

So there was that kick in the smallclothes. Still, I got over it and got on with the read. And let me say that, in typical YA/NA fashion, the drama is dramatic and the pining is intense without ever veering into the carnally explicit. This was a, well, it was...good, I guess.

I say that, as a card-carrying smutmonger, because the fact is I'm uncomfortable with the hypersexualization of Western (not solely US) culture. (I reviewed THE PORNIFICATION OF AMERICA, so this isn't the first time I'm saying this.) This pining and longing and simply being too scared to make a move has the wonderful, true-to-real-life benefit of giving Author Lee a chance to unleash some of the best lines she's got:

A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I’m left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.
–and–
Love may be a grand thing, but goddamn if it doesn’t take up more than its fair share of space inside a man.

These are wonderful, funny, and true things for the intended audience to hear. Yay!

Author Lee's cute call-outs to her tribe are welcome lighteners of mood at different moments. She deploys the snark in small, concentrated, and beautifully timed doses:

“Poetry is the most embarrassing art form. I can sort of understand why all the poets off themselves.”
–and–
God bless the book people for their boundless knowledge absorbed from having words instead of friends.

Heh. I resemble those remarks. So will the younger readers, and their sense of being in on the joke will no doubt give them the same warm glow it does me.

The specific thing that powered me, older and less eager, to continue my grim trudge to page 501, was the fact that Author Lee never once made me roll my eyes by using anachronistic language, or attributing anachronistic concepts such as I've shorthanded above, with her eigtheenth-century characters. No one says "gay" or "bisexual," though the labels fit; they didn't exist then, and the distinction between hetero- and homosexual identities had yet to be formulated. Sodomy is an act; any man or woman can commit it; and thus Author Lee puts period-apporpriate language of description instead of identity in her folks' mouths:

When you are a lad who enjoys getting other lads in bed, you have to develop a rather fastidious sense for who plays the same instrument or there’s a chance you’ll find yourself at the business end of a hangman’s knot.

What is universal and constant is the way being in love impacts a person's ability to think and function, their perception of self, of the belovèd, of the world:

“You’re hopeless,” he says, and it is so strange and horrible and utterly lovely how the way that he’s looking at me makes me want to both back away and throw myself upon him. It hurts like a sudden light striking your eyes in the dead of night.
–and–
It is remarkable how much courage it takes to kiss someone, even when you are almost certain that person would very much like to be kissed by you. Doubt will knock you from the sky every time.
–and–
We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with lacquer and flakes of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.

Why would I, given my praises as sung, rate the book a seemingly mingy four stars of five? Because I love the message more than I love the read. I am surely grateful to Nora for the gift, and glad of the read being done, but I won't read more in the series. It's enough to know the series continues despite my not being along for the ride. So long live this long, long read! Lovers at last, and no it's not a spoiler because it's a feature of the genre, lovers and friends and eager explorers of the entire beautiful world. That is so very worth reading.