Montague Siblings Series

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2019

This is so darned charming and heartfelt, while still being full of adventure. I could read it a hundred times and never get sick of this one.

Book 33 read in 2019

Pages: 513

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
This novel has so much voice, the kind that’s funny and unapologetic. I really do want to hug this book, which is problematic since I listened to the audiobook.

The MC is a charming rake who gets himself into mess after mess, and I adore the fact that one of the side characters is his sister. That’s so rare in YA these days…to have a really relevant character be a sibling, and for that sibling to go along on the adventure. It added a nice dynamic.

These teenagers were appropriately teenagery, and I loved how the dated time period still felt so fresh and easy to exist within. These are the kind of characters who steal away little pieces of your heart, and you don’t even mind.

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The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is another great YA historical adventure by Mackenzi Lee.

This one has some amazing feminist undertones, though the MC, who likely feels she is one of the first feminists, has a whole lot to learn about what it truly means to be supportive of women and to advocating for their rights, while still respecting their choices and preferences. She has an amazing friend who teaches her some difficult lessons.

Plus, this one has pirates, water dragons, family legacies run a muck, amputations, and once again plenty of diversity, especially for being a historical novel. The voice is unique, and it made me so happy that Monty and Percy played a role in Felicity's story, without crowding her out of the spotlight.

Book 34 read in 2019

Pages: 450

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Super Immunity by Joel Fuhrman

In Super Immunity, Fuhrman outlines how certain foods including leafy green vegetables, mushrooms, onions, garlic, berries and seeds can improve our natural defenses. Eating only vegetables, particularly green leafy and other foods high in nutrients is purported to not only boost immunity but also rid the body of other problems like diabetes and lupus.  While the information on the particular vegetables was interesting and useful, there is also a lot of space given to his theories on, for example, why cold medicines don't work. He also includes a lot of testimonials, which I always consider kind of a red flag for credibility.  Furhman espouses the vegan diet, or at least a diet with little or no meat and dairy, and not much fats except avocados.  While there are a number of recipes given, similar ones can be found in any good vegan cookbook. There is also no index. Most reviewers on Amazon gave the book 4 or 5 stars, but I expect most of them were predisposed to his message.  278 pages. Medicine

10% Human: how your bodies microbes hold the key to health and happiness, by Alanna Collen

Here's a startling fact - for every one of the cells that make up your body, there are another nine living on or mostly inside you.  These microbes have a very complex relationship with us, their host organisms.  Without them, we would not be able to digest a good portion of our food, we would lose out on important vitamins and enzymes that they produce, and would also lose much of our immune system.  While I was mostly acquainted with the basics of the role of these microbes in digestion, Collen also summarizes recent research on the links between these microbes, antibiotics, and other illnesses or disorders such as obesity, autism and even personality traits such as anxiety and other moods.  Collen turns the 'you are what you eat' statement around to 'you are what they eat' and describes the widespread effects of various imbalances of microbes on human health.  So, if you want to have better health and boost your immune system, eat what your microbes prefer - lots of good fruits and vegetables.  304 pages.  Medical .

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone is an absolutely beautiful story about love and medicine.  It is first the forbidden love of a beautiful Indian nun and a British doctor, both of whom are working in a small clinic/hospital in mid-twentieth century Ethiopia.  Next there is the love between their twin boys, who are left orphaned by her death during their birth and his disappearance.  Then there is the family love that evolves between their adopted parents, the two doctors who delivered them, and the babies.  Also, there is the love of the country, the images, sounds, and smells brought sympathetically to life by Dr. Abraham Verghese.  Conflict arises when both of the boys love a young woman they grew up with -- their housekeeper's daughter.
 
667 pages

The Bloodletter’s Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia) by Linda Lafferty

This is a historical novel, loosely based on a murder that took place in Cesky Krumlov, outer Bohemia, in the early seventeenth century. At that time, barbers were also barber-surgeons, or bloodletters. The villagers relied on the barber to relieve their ailments by balancing the four "humors."

Marketa Pichler is the daughter of the town bloodletter, or surgeon. Even though girls can’t be surgeons, Marketa’s father teaches her everything he knows, and she becomes his assistant. When Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, exiles his mad son, Don Julius, to Cesky Krumlov, the bloodletter is enlisted to cure him of his madness by purging the vicious humors coursing through his veins. Marketa accompanies him, and Don Julius becomes obsessed with her. Marketa, both frightened and fascinated by the handsome royal, can’t stay away.

This is a suspenseful and dark story set in a period in which the entire world was constantly engaged in war. The backdrop of the story is the internecine fighting for the Holy Roman Empire. Not for the faint-of heart.

512 pages