ARC Review: The Gentleman's Book of Vices by Jess Everlee

The Gentleman's Book of Vices by Jess Everlee
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This unfortunately ended up being a miss for me, on several counts. The salient points are that I felt like the characters were flat, they had no chemistry or emotion, the sex scenes were handled poorly, and the plot was frustrating to nonexistent. I think it had potential, but it was not realized here.

Characters:

I never felt like I got to know the characters at all. Any of the somewhat numerous cast.

Charlie comes off as a self centered man child - this could be a starting point, but he never truly grows from it, jerking his fiancee around a lot with his dithering, so I just ended up not liking him at all.

Miles…did we ever get any backstory on him, outside of a brief Ethan thing? I genuinely don’t think so. He’s just kind of there. Cardboard like. He didn’t feel consistent either, more like he was cobbled together of plot-convenient personalities. The smooth sommelier moment didn’t match with the suddenly working class suspicious dude, etc. He didn’t feel cohesive.

The LGBT+ Rep Squad at the bar. Too many! I get it, setting up Diverse Friend Group for future books, but the first chapter opens with like 100 characters. I don’t know who they are. They’re referred to by first and/or last names, or nicknames, or fake names, or whatever. I couldn’t keep track. I am bad at tracking characters in the first place, don’t make it harder. I ended up skimming every time they appeared, because I couldn’t follow conversations or people. They were supposed to have a strong super bond of caring, but it felt like a normal pod of bar people. Casual friends, not ride or die ones. But I think that part is not unique to the side characters, but the general lack of depth I felt this book had.

I don’t know if it makes sense, but I felt like these were not people, but characters. Some authors can make me feel like their characters are fully realized people living their stories, and here, I was reading a screenplay.

Romance:

I never felt the chemistry or emotional connection between the two MCs. They were always being mostly unpleasant to each other, for not entirely clear reasons. Part of this is that I felt like the characters themselves were not well developed, and if you have two dimensional characters, you can’t get anything past a flat romance either.

Everything that stemmed from it then felt out of place. The waffling, the breakup(?), the pining…it never felt believable. It started as instalust, but I also never really felt the desire either. I think it was lacking emotional range to bring me into their (alleged) great love story.

Sex scenes/how they were handled:

This one I don’t usually call out separately, but I have a lot to say about this in particular. There was a lot going on, and I did not like it.

This is a book about an erotica writer, so I was anticipating some high heat explicit scenes. I wasn’t expecting an all out erotica obviously, and didn’t want that, but when the sex was happening, I expected quality. I ….did not get that.

Pick your fighter:

• Interrupting sex scene with dwelling on the dead partner

• Sex scene over in 2 sentences

It was still early in their acquaintance, and yet they’d developed habits already. Once they were spent, all bonds were untied and everything was tidied up.

• Begin explicit sex scene, set up for tender, emotionally intimate sex, and then….slam the door in the readers face, chapter ends, next one opens in the morning.

Can you tell I’m mad? I’m mad. I hate getting cheated out of emotionally touching sex, it’s such a lovely moment to show the characters bonding and caring and sweet!!! and then no.

• Sex scene drowning in absurdly gauzy and flowery euphemisms

We have every dodge known to readerkind. If you don’t want to write sex, don’t write it! Just do standard fade to black. (Slamming the door mid R rated scene does not count as that, by the way.)


Plot

Was there a plot? There were large stretches of time where I felt like no, there was not a plot. The romance itself did not function as a plot for me. The end was very deus ex machina, and very annoying eleventh hour sunshine and roses rescue.

I guess the whole marriage thing is also kind of a lot. It definitely did not show Charlie in a good light, since he almost ditched Alma to suffering and dying. I get that I’m supposed to root for the gay love story here, but damn it did not work on me. Actually, towards the end, Miles was also a jerk to Alma, all this back and forth and dramatics when her literal life depends on them. I guess I’m just team Alma now. Give her books! Down with the shitty family! Fuck the patriarchy! You deserve better!


Overall, while this had the pieces and some potential to be enjoyable, it ended up being a frustrating read for me on many counts. Individually they wouldn’t be dealbreakers, but when they all stack up like this, it really made it not a good time. Since this is a debut novel, I remain optimistic that some of these issues will be ironed out in future books, so despite my litany of criticism, don’t entirely write this off, it may work for you.


I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions are my own.