Book Review: THE GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE by Mackenzie Lee

Photo credit: Goodreads

I don't read a whole lot of historical (that is to say, I pretty near never read historical), so I'll admit when I first heard about The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue I was really intrigued but also hesitant because...I don't usually like historical.

But in the end, the premise was just too fantastic to pass up, and every snippet I peeked at made me want it more. And I'm so glad I gave Gentleman's Guide a shot because it immediately jumped onto my favorites list.

But before I go on, here's the Goodreads summary:

"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."

Firstly, this book was hilarious. Monty's voice is so captivating and fun from the first page to the last—I found myself smiling instantly and I pretty much didn't stop until the end (you know, minus some emotional parts). I loved Monty's reckless view of the world and all the situations he put himself in—then the way he handled them and thought about them had me literally laughing out loud in places.

I also loved the representative aspects involved. While I can't speak to most of them from personal experience, it was really cool to see not only a queer protagonist (Monty is bisexual), but his best friend is biracial and there's some really in-depth discussion about chronic illness that I could relate to and really appreciated. I have zero complaints about how Lee handled the chronic illness discussion, which becomes a pretty big part of the book, and there were moments that I certainly found myself nodding along to.

Honestly, this is the first time I've seen a chronically ill character in YA in a book that wasn't specifically about illness, and it was really, really awesome to see, even while the illness was vastly different from my own.

So between the representative stuff, the kick-ass plot, and Monty's pitch-perfect voice, I absolutely loved every page of this book, and I can't recommend it enough to others. It really just made me so ridiculously happy to read and I'm delighted to see how successful it's been.

Diversity note: The protagonist, Monty, is bisexual, and his best friend is biracial. There's also a pretty intensive discussion of chronic illness throughout.

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae gives ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ to THE GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE by Mackenzie Lee. Is this fun YA on your TBR? (Click to tweet)

Vlog: How Chronic Illness Affects My Writing

On my chronic illness and how it's affected different aspects of my writing—a collaboration with Lily Meade.

RELATED LINKS: 

• Lily's Channel
• How Chronic Illness Influences My Writing | Collab with Ava Jae (vlog)
• On Identity and Visibility
• On the Lack of Chronic Illness Rep in YA
• Why the "Miracle Cure" Trope Hurts

What life factors have unexpectedly affected your writing?

Twitter-sized bite:

Author @Ava_Jae shares how her chronic illness has affected her writing. (Click to tweet)

On Identity and Visibility

Photo credit: Steve A Johnson on Flickr

When I first transferred to the university where I'd later complete my Bachelor's degree, I registered with the student disability center.

Though this was the third college I'd attended, it was the first time I registered the campus center. But I knew I would need it, if only to get permission to use my iPad in all of my classes, regardless of class policy, because taking notes by hand I'd already learned had become too painful, thanks to rheumatoid arthritis.

Even as I was registered as a disabled student on campus, though, I still hesitated to call myself disabled.

I knew, logically, I was and am, but when you have a chronic illness, some days it doesn't feel like you're disabled enough to really say you're disabled. On days when I'm not flaring, I appear, for all intents and purposes, able-bodied. Sure, I can't write by hand and it's ridiculously easy to make my hand hurt, and sure, I learned the hard way I can't jog if I value my ability to walk and I can't stand or walk for prolonged periods anymore, but most of the time I look fine. I can walk without mobility aids, and I get through the day with more pain than most, yes, but I've gotten good at hiding it and being in low amounts of pain throughout the day has become normal for me.

So I hesitated. I rationalized that I don't feel disabled most of the time—which, to be honest, is only half-true. More like I didn't feel disabled when I chose not to think about the things I couldn't do anymore: jog, participate in my favorite sport (taekwondo), help support myself through a part-time job I'm good at (waitressing), write by hand, etc. More like a part of me felt as though it was somehow disingenuous to say that I'm disabled because...I don't know? What's the bar for "disabled enough"?

(Ignoring, of course, the flare that put my whole left arm out of commission for a week because moving it at all was excruciating. Ignoring, the multiple flares that left me limping to class as my knee swelled up under my jeans, and that time I presented my final in so much pain I was gritting my teeth. Ignoring, of course, the bad days, because they were rare and not all the time.)

Which was illogical—I knew that, and I certainly didn't hold anyone else to that standard when they said they were disabled. And yet, I couldn't stop myself from hesitating when I said the words myself.

Then August happened, and I had the worst health month of my life: three flares in three weeks in a row. Three times when for multiple days I felt like I was running on half my energy levels or less. Three times when I fought full-body exhaustion on top of increased pain, for multiple days at a time.

Then, last week, my family and I went to the zoo. It was a fun trip, and for the first half of the day or so I was fine. A little tired from a quick flare the night before, but all in all I felt okay.

And then my knee started hurting. This surprised me, because I haven't had my knee bother me in probably almost a year. But it was familiar, and I didn't think too much about it. I asked my family if we could sit, and we did for five minutes or so, and then I felt fine and we kept going.

And then my knee hurt again, and my hips joined the chorus. Both of them. This was completely new—I'd had issues with my hips before, but only when I was sitting. But now I was definitely flaring and as I walked, the pain and stiffness got worse. Much worse.

I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore it for a while. I was determined to enjoy myself and tried to distract my brain by focusing on the animals. I told myself I was out doing something fun and everything was fine and I didn't want to cut our day short. Besides, I reasoned, we were almost done. I could get through the last bit.

It wasn't long after that I realized the pain was distracting me from what we were seeing. That I could no longer focus on having a good time because my body hurt too much. That every step was a battle and for the first time in my life I wished I had a wheelchair.

That was scary. And sobering. And when I finally broke down and admitted to my family I needed to sit down because I couldn't walk the rest of the way without a break, a thought hit me very clearly: I really am disabled.

Because my chronic illness is largely invisible, I've struggled with how to incorporate it into my identity. Like so many things, it can feel strange to say "this is part of who I am" when other people can't see it. Visibility absolutely makes a difference and changes how the world interacts with you, but plenty goes on beneath the surface that others can't see, and it's one of the many reasons why people are to be believed when they say, "This is who I am."

Twitter-sized bite: 

Author @Ava_Jae shares a personal post on chronic illness, invisibility, and identity. (Click to tweet)

On the Lack of Chronic Illness Rep in YA

Photo credit: e-Magine Art on Flickr

I’ve been thinking lately about chronic illness representation in YA. Or rather, the lack thereof.

There’ve been a few reasons why it’s on my mind, most obviously because I’m a chronically ill young person myself, and less obviously because I keep hearing about books with disabled protagonists who end up cured/not actually sick after all at the end and it’s just so frustrating.

I’ve already written about why the Miracle Cure is such a problem, both on and off the page, so this post isn’t about that.

This post is about the lack of representation because I’m tired of books with chronically ill characters ending one of two ways: they die (and their deaths are So Tragic), or they’re cured (because how else can they have a Happily Ever After?).

Right now, this is the message we’re giving our chronically ill kids: your stories are only worth telling if you die or have a miracle.

— Ava Jae (@Ava_Jae) September 5, 2015

This is the message we’re giving our chronically ill kids: your stories are only worth telling if you die or have a miracle.

This is the message we’re giving our chronically ill kids: you can only be happy if you aren’t Sick.

This is the message we’re giving our able-bodied kids: Sick kids are Tragic Figures there to teach you to Appreciate Your Lives.

I asked Twitter for suggestions for books with chronically ill (not terminally ill) characters who aren’t cured at the end, which got a ton of RTs (thank you, Twitter!). For the sake of the post, I was looking specifically for physical illnesses, if only because there's a lot out there on mental illnesses (which is awesome!), but I rarely see anything about chronic physical illnesses, thus why I started looking for it. Anyway.

After help with investigating from @KatiTheWriter and @rachelacantor, and a lot of digging, I ended up with twenty-seven published books, plus one forthcoming. Thirteen were published between one and three decades ago—most of which are about diabetes—and five of those were part of a series. A few that I’m not counting were published around the same time and had die/died in the title so I think you understand why I’m not including them. So if we’re counting YA published within the last decade that isn’t death-focused, we drop down to fourteen.

Fourteen YA books published within the last decade with chronically ill characters. That's not even one and a half a year. Of them, half are about diabetes or epilepsy (which seem to be the most common two chronic illnesses covered in YA). And I haven’t read many of them, so I have no idea how they end. I hope not with a Miracle Cure or a death, but I don’t know.

Are there others out there that I missed? Very possibly. But the fact that it was so darn hard to find twenty-seven books published over the course of twenty-nine years really speaks to how much of an issue this is. It shouldn't be this hard.

And it sucks. It sucks knowing that with very few exceptions, the only times chronically ill kids get to see themselves represented is when they’re getting one of the messages above. Because what does that say to them about their worth and how the rest of their lives will look?

This isn’t okay. We need to do better.

I want chronically ill protagonists saving the world and having adventures while dealing with their illness.

I want chronically ill protagonists falling in love and learning that every part of them is beautiful, even the Sick parts.

I want chronically ill protagonists who handle their illness in realistic ways. Who have their Happily Ever Afters without a cure. Who are badass and sick simultaneously because the two aren’t mutually exclusive. And I want them in YA books, because chronically ill kids get the message that they shouldn’t be sick while young ALL THE TIME and just. I’m so tired of it. So, so tired of it.

There isn’t a quick or easy solution to this. But these messages are so damaging and hurtful to kids, and it’s so disappointing to me that it hasn’t been addressed.

We have an amazing community. We can do better. We have to.

Note: Since many have asked, here's a list of the YA books I found that have some chronic (not terminal) illness representation. Though I did research as much as I could, it's likely that I've missed some. I've not read most these, so I don’t know if their endings disqualify them with a Miracle Cure or a death, or in the case of epilepsy, I'm not sure if all of these are illness rather than injury-related (if you know either of these things, please let me know and I’ll remove it and update the post accordingly). Also, many of these older ones especially are very outdated (both in how the illnesses are viewed and treated), I have no idea if the representation is respectful (so please be careful), and not all of these books were rated highly because of other book-related issues. So with that caveat:

(1986) The Babysitter’s Club #1 Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin—Diabetes***

(1987) Edith Herself by Ellen Howard—Epilepsy***
(1988) The Babysitter’s Club #13 Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye by Ann M. Martin—Diabetes*

(1988) When Dreams Shatter by Lurlene McDaniel—Diabetes
(1989) The Babysitter’s Club #28 Welcome Back, Stacey! by Ann M. Martin—Diabetes*
(1990) Jodie’s Journey by Colin Thiele—Arthritis
(1995) The Babysitter’s Club #83 Stacey vs. the BSC by Ann M. Martin—Diabetes*
(1995) The Babysitter’s Club #87 Stacey and the Bad Girls by Ann M. Martin—Diabetes*
(1995) Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Alden R. Carter—Diabetes**
(1995) All the Days of Her Life by Lurlene McDaniel—Diabetes**

(2000) The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick—Epilepsy***
(2003) Sweetblood by Pete Hautman—Diabetes**

(2004) Song of the Magdalene by Donna Jo Napoli—Epilepsy***
(2006) Last Dance by Lurlene McDaniel—Diabetes**

(2007) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie—Epilepsy, Hydrocephalus***

(2007) Zane's Trace by Allan Wolf—Epilepsy***

(2011) Throat by R.A. Nelson—Epilepsy***
(2012) Parallel Visions by Cheryl Rainfield—Severe asthma

(2013) My Life After Now by Jessica Verdi—HIV
(2014) Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling by Lucy Frank—Crohn’s Disease***
(2014) Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless by Liz Czukas—Diabetes***
(2014) The Summer I Found You by Jolene Perry—Diabetes***
(2014) Inland by Kat Rosenfeld—Undefined chronic pulmonary illness***

(2014) The Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan—Epilepsy***

(2015) Hold Me Like a Breath by Tiffany Schmidt—Autoimmune disorder***
(2015) The Way We Bared Our Souls by Willa Strayhorn—Multiple Sclerosis***

(2015) Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas—Epilepsy, Cardiomyopathy***
(2016/17?) Unfolding by Jonathan Friesen—Epilepsy***

*According to TBC wiki.
**Found off YALSA’s Diabetes in YA Fiction for National Diabetes Month post.
***Found on Disability in Kidlit’s GR shelves.

Twitter-sized bites:

"I want chronically ill protags saving the world & having adventures while dealing w/ their illness." (Click to tweet)  

The lack of chronic illness representation in YA is a problem—and @Ava_Jae explains why. (Click to tweet)