The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virture by Mackenzi Lee -- A Not So Favorable Review

Summary: Monty is lechy lush with an abusive father and a crush on his childhood best friend. Percy is bi-racial in a time where that in unacceptable. Felicity is Monty's sister and just wants to study medicine. They go on the Grand Tour of Europe together. Shenanigans ensue, the trip derails and Alchemy happens?

I gave this book 3 stars...Ugh






I want to start out with a strong statement...What the ACTUAL fuck is this book?! Holy. Shit. I just can't.

  
I know that the opinions below are probably going to be very unpopular...I just want everyone to know that I'm not judging anyone who enjoyed this book. This book wasn't meant for me, and that's ok!  So, to start us off, I'm going to talk about the positives. It's a polite thing to do.

On a Positive Note:

The first 100 pages or so were AWESOME! I was super enjoying this book! It was hilarious! Monty is a lech and he loves to drink and gamble. Naturally it gets him into a lot of trouble and some really awkward predicaments. I loved it! If the whole book had just been about the Grand Tour and all the shit Monty got into, SOLD! Unfortunately, it wasn't...but we'll get to that later. I promise. It was funny and interesting to read. I understood 100% why people were losing their shit over this book. Again, I will touch on what happened later.

The characters are soooooooooooo good! I love Monty, Percy and Felicity. They are real people with real problems and they are treated in a way that I feel was historically accurate for the time period in which this book was meant to have taken place. Monty is terribly flawed and very stupid, but that is part of his charm. You watch him struggle with trying to please his father and trying to fight against his wild nature. He was charmingly frustrating and I loved that about him. 

Percy was super sweet and I was genuinely cheering for him throughout the novel, as I was Felicity as well. At first I found her to be annoying, but as her character and personality came out, I didn't mind her so much.

I did also like the romance between Monty and Percy. It was a bit like Carry On by Rainbow Rowell...but not done nearly as well. Still, I was rooting for them to get together...and for Monty to pull his head out of his ass. Haha

Things that DIDN'T work:

Honestly, if it wasn't for the characters I would have DNF'd the hell out of this book.

Let's start with that love story I was just praising. It was SOOOOOOOO hot and cold, but not in a sexy way. Monty is so frustrating...I am not sure how Percy put up with him. He must be a saint! He insults Percy multiple times, mostly because Monty is a privileged white boy and has no idea what is like to be in Percy's shoes (as I mentioned before, Percy is bi-racial and he doesn't have the same rights as Monty does in this time period). He also doesn't really try to understand either? I don't know. I wasn't super into the romance...but I still wanted them to succeed.

The plot was a hot mess. First we are the Grand Tour, then something happens and they end up going on a wild goose chase all over Europe because of alchemy.....What? And I didn't even think it was original! It was like Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. I can't say how because it might spoil both series, but trust me...there were some odd parallels...

There were scenes that reminded me of other things as well...like:

Or this:

And if all those things weren't enough, how about some of this:

...upon looking at all of this, it sounds really cool...but the thing is, it has all been done before...and better! All I could think of were these comparisons and how much better they were than what I was currently reading. Plus what I was reading was NOT what this book was advertised as. I was expecting something completely different. A best friends road trip novel...but in Europe and it's all old timey and there is an amazing M/M (male/male) romance...but it really wasn't what the book is about. It's about best friends who are SUPPOSED to go on a European tour but something happens and they end up getting severely sidetracked because Monty is an idiot.

I am having a really hard time expressing my feelings for this book. I was annoyed with most of it and everything is spoilers so I can't really say what else bothered me. UGH!

So anyway...I think I'm done thinking about this damn book. I was mislead, I was bored, I was upset and shocked that everything felt like a plagiarized bastardization of things that already exist...and are a million times better....I am emotionally spent.....I need some alcohol....and an angry nap.

I also want to apologize for the excessive use of GIFs in this post...I was trying something new and I may have gone overboard? Maybe not? Ehh...I'll probably keep doing it until someone stops me. Hahaha

Here's where to find me!

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6483377-supermomochan-peachyfishybooks

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5eRrShYL-HK0Gzg2qp4zQ/featured















Again....I can't just leave it like that...I have more to say...and it's spoilery...so...you've been warned if you go past this point. 

I still have no clue why this book is so bloody popular. It is literally the biggest rip off a ton of major anime/movie titles...I mean...yeah, it's not a complete bastardization, but there were so many parallels that it made me really dislike this story. Yeah, if you haven't seen One Piece or Fullmetal Alchemist, I could see that it might be an enjoyable read a little bit more....but even then...after looking past everything...this is NOT what was expected. At. All. After the incident with the robbers and escaping into town, I was already starting to get disappointed...then we find out Percy is sick and that he's going to be sent away...so yeah, that was sad, but they find out the trinket Monty had stolen from the important French guy....whose name I can't be arsed to remember...is actually a key for an alchemical heart that could possibly cure Percy...so this is no longer a story about a final horrah on a Grand Tour...which is what I was hoping. This is a trio of teenagers trying to get a key to a heart of a chimera...of a not dead but mostly dead woman...I didn't want this. They spent so much time in Spain faffing around trying to get answers from the son and daughter of the guy who did the alchemy...great...more shit I don't care about. Like, we went through some shitty character development of characters we didn't need to hang around. Yeah....we are supposed to feel bad about taking the heart of their mother...but we shouldn't have been in this position to begin with. Then the whole going to Venice and getting the key................Going into the catacombs....the fight scene......the escape.......like a scene right out of Indiana Jones...except they weren't looking for a religious item.

I know this is kind of incoherent and maybe it doesn't make sense...but I just feel like I can't fully explain why I didn't like this book...................................There were just too many things working against it. I had such a hard time talking about this book. I literally have a headache. I sorry if this ending bit is a bit...shit. XD

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon -- A Mildly Unpopular Review

Summary: Dimple doesn't want to find an Ideal Indian Husband (IIH) and just wants to code. Rishi is all about pleasing his family and is excited about his arranged marriage to Dimple. They meet at a coding camp. Rishi gets soaked in coffee because Dimple thinks he's creeping on her. Stuff happens, dancing ensues.

I gave this a 3.5 stars...reluctantly...please don't kill me everyone....

As you can see from the star rating...Momes wasn't really all that impressed with this book...I realize this is an unpopular opinion but I can't help the way I felt. So let's get this over with.

Things this book did well!:

I really liked that this book was about things that aren't really discussed in YA. Coding for one. Dimple is super into coding and really wants to make apps that help people which is something I can respect. She doesn't want to do what her parents tell her is right for a young Indian woman. She just wants to do what she wants to do. Sick. Good for you.

I loved Rishi. He is such a great character. He is kind, he stands up for himself and I really liked watching his struggle with trying to please his parents and also do what he wants to do (which I feel is a problem that a lot of young people can relate to). He tries everything he can to win over Dimple and it is really sweet.

MANGA REPRESENTATION! Holy. Shit. As you all may or may not know, I do read a decent amount of manga and even though it is becoming less and less taboo to say that you read manga, I feel there is still a bit of a stigma around it. But Rishi seems like a really cool, "popular" type guy and he's totally into comics. That's great and all, but then we get to see popular titles listed though out the story that most manga nerds would know and it's pretty cool! I know I was super shocked to see some popular titles pop up in this book.

There are also some interesting conversations about race and ethnicity. Just because your parents are from another country doesn't mean you identify with their culture and believe in their beliefs. Dimple obviously doesn't agree with her parents and she discusses with the reader how weird it is for her to live in America, where she is treated as the "weird Indian girl", to how she is treated in India where she is the "weird American girl." Having lived in both Japan and America, I can relate to this feeling of being neither one culture or another. Got me right in the feels.

I also really liked all of the Bollywood mentions. I haven't watched a lot of Bollywood films, but as a dancer I love different types of dance. So seeing names of actual dances from films and being about to YouTube them and watch them was really cool! I, naturally, had to watch all the dances Menon mentioned. It was so much fun and I really appreciated that she did that. It gave people who were not familiar with Bollywood a chance to learn and appreciate.

Google images Dil Na Diya from Krrish

The book was also really addicting and easy to read, so it had that going for it!

Now that seems like a pretty strong case for a 5 star rating....but as it only got a 3.5, let's get into some of my issues.

What didn't work:

I honestly had hoped that the romance would have been a bit more....slow burning. The thing that really bothered me was that Dimple was VERY adamant that she wasn't interested in wearing makeup, getting dressed up, finding her ideal husband and all that romantic stuff. She often got in fights with her mother, and did everything she could to avoid looking presentable. All she wants to do is be a coder. Yet after meeting Rishi once, she finds herself looking for him in the crowd. She is instantly woo'd by him (though, to be fair, I was too) and I felt she gave into him pretty quickly. I would have been much happier if she had been slightly stand-offish until the end, maybe start to feel something but then not really act upon it until the end where she confessed her love for him...or whatever. The whole thing felt insta-lovey to me and I wasn't really into it.

I also felt that Dimple was really abusive towards Rishi. She toys with his emotions so much in this novel...I think that's why I didn't like the romance the way it played out. If it had been the slow burning romance that I had wanted, maybe Dimple wouldn't have taken out her romantic frustrations on him. She was so hot and cold for him and she didn't really seem to care about his feelings. She does a lot of stupid things to him that made me question if this was a healthy relationship or not. Though I think Dimple grew a bit a the end of the novel, I can't help but wonder what their future is going to be like...

I also wished that with such a big premise as a girl who can only ever think about coding and wants to be the best coder ever, there isn't a lot of coding happening. Like, yeah, it would have went over some of our heads if she had put in a lot of technical coding stuff...but there is a lot of artistic things about coding she could have up in it besides the art...like concepts and other things...or at least talk about the project more. But I felt like it got brushed away for many other things...

The talent show....Though I loved all the Bollywood references and I realize that the money was to help with the coding (the coding we hardly ever got to hear about)...I HATED the talent show. It was just more reason to cause drama and f**k around. There was so much added and useless drama that happened and I just didn't want any of it. It also took up a large portion of the latter half of the book. Completely unnecessary.

I found a lot of the things that happened in this book to be completely unnecessary. Friendship drama and some of the boy crazy, sex stuff was really not needed.

So, all of that being said, though I did like a good deal about this book, I think the bad out weighed the good. I also don't think I am going to pick up Sandhya Menon's next book. Again, it just sounds like a book full of lies and abusive relationships. That is not something I'm interested in.

Here are all of my links and such!

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6483377-supermomochan-peachyfishybooks

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5eRrShYL-HK0Gzg2qp4zQ 

In case you were curious, like I was, here are the links to the two dances Dimple and Rishi practiced and talked about during the talent show. I enjoyed watching these very much and hope that you check them out too!

Dance Pe Chance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nJivRs-FEs&index=17&list=WL
Dil Na Diya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHFtoEHw08&index=18&list=WL