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The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book surprised me. Henry “Monty” Montague begins the book as a privileged, spoiled, 18 year old brat with no idea just how privileged he is or that his choices actually do have consequences because someone else always pays the price. As the book opens, his abusive, pious, strict father is sending him “on tour” with the warning “This is the last chance I’m giving you… clean up, sober up, stop letting lads climb in through your bedroom window at night or else…” Then one evening, in a fit of pettiness Monty steals an innocent, little, ornamental box from the Duke of Bourbon. Suddenly, his tour has become a dangerous adventure. In his own words “I have become a Grand Tour horror story…. I have lost my bear-leader. I have been kidnapped by pirates and attacked by highwaymen. I have humiliated your good name before the French court, run naked through the gardens at Versailles, turned up corpses and sank an island – a whole bloody island…. Also, I’m now short an ear.” Through it all he discovers what is really important and that “I am better than the worst things I’ve done”. It is a stunning, coming of age, GLSBTQ, historical fiction adventure. So if you are a teen who enjoys any one or more of those genres narrated by a funny, petulant male lead that challenges the expectations of “proper society” in every way imaginable, this is the book for you!