Hello Patrons! 🙂

I finished the audiobook of Romantic Outlaws on Friday night and haven’t had time to talk about it until now. I had a lot of fun listening to this book and have very little negative points to bring up. On that note lets get into it!

What I Liked:

The narrator had the poshest voice ever. It fit the vibe of the story perfectly. I really enjoyed the writing style of the book itself. It felt like listening to a Gothic novel. I am a big fan of history being presented like a novel. History isn’t dry it’s just presented dryly. Everyone presented in the book is so complex and interesting and multi-dimensional. (Even though I was super irritated at a certain person which I’ll get into in a bit). I liked that Gordon constructed the book to go between the timelines of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley to show the echoes of the former on the latter. I knew absolutely nothing about either woman so this was super informative. I also liked that Gordon talked about how both Shelley and Wollstencraft wrote the works that they were know for, Frankenstein and The Vindication of the Rights of Women. That helped me appreciate the book even more.

What I Didn’t Like:

As I said above I knew nothing about Wollstonecraft or Shelley’s lives. Along the same lines, I knew nothing about Wollstonecraft’s husband William Godwin nor Shelley’s husband Percy Shelley.

After reading this book what I do know about the partners of these uber important women are that they were THE WORST! Percy Shelley was super wishy-washy, SLEPT WITH MARY SHELLEY’S STEPSISTER ALLEGEDLY! and annoyingly altruistic. There were so many times I was at work and face palming at Percy Shelley’s idiocy. Godwin did a HORRIBLE job at writing Wollstonecraft’s memoirs; only writing the events of her life to reflect her relationship in terms of other men, while totally disregarding her published work or her thoughts on philosophy, taking only 8 weeks to write her memoirs (and 4 days to edit said work). Godwin also didn’t talk to Wollstonecraft’s sisters about her early life for the memoir.

Nothing was particularly wrong with the book my mind was just boggled that men could be this dumb. I just needed somewhere to rant about this. If you know about Percy Shelley, you’ll be better prepared for this book. I was not so that was my own fault.

My Overall Thoughts:

Excluding my rant on the husbands I really liked this book. If your a history buff, or a literary geek I suggest checking this out. If your looking for something interesting to listen to, I say check this out. I gave Romantic Outlaws a full 5/5 stars on Goodreads. I am definitely going to read both Frankenstein and The Vindication of the Rights of Women in the future.

Reading Update:

I finished Nobody Will Tell You This But Me yesterday afternoon and I enjoyed it. 5/5 stars on Goodreads. I am also still really liking Love & Olives. I haven’t made a lot more progress. I’ve started listening to The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. I really like the narrator. He has a velvety rich voice, which helps offset the heavy topics Baldwin wrote about. The audiobook is about 2 1/2 hours. I also have the audio book for Eloquent Rage which will be my next listen before Obama’s book.

Tell me what you’re reading or listening to, in the comments below. Are you participating in this round of Tome Topple? Let me know. I am so excited that my semester is coming to a close so I can read more! I am also excited for Obama’s book.

I tried to hold back the rage today, tomorrow will be a more upbeat Leila.

Take care of yourselves, wear a mask in public, wash your hands, practice some self care, and…