Member Reviews
This books offers great insight into the lives of a courtesan living in 19th century. It was a seamless continuation of the first book!
Interesting but difficult to keep up with at times. I don't know if it is the book or my kindle version, but there was a lack of structure that led to time and day jumps that took time to make sense of and took me out of the diary.
I will not be reviewing this book because while I went into it knowing it was a second volume, I thought there'd be an introduction or some context instead of just randomly starting at chapter 10. When I saw there wasn't anything like that, I even went and tried to buy the first book on Amazon because I had some expiring Kindle Rewards credits I needed to use, and guess what? It wasn't available in ebook! I appreciate the author publishing these translations to begin with and I was interested in them because I enjoy reading both fiction and nonfiction sources about the history of sex work, but it is absolutely crucial for anyone publishing a series to make the first book in that series available for sale through all major retail outlets (other than with platform-exclusive titles, obviously, but that isn't applicable here). I'm not going to waste any more of my time or money trying to make a reading experience work when the author can't even be bothered to make certain the first book is available on the platform that sells the vast majority of all ebooks, and I'm certainly not going to consider trying to make a case for buying a print copy for circulation until I can review. If I can get an .epub of the first volume on Amazon at some point then I might go back and read both of them, but... life is just too short for this. I'm leaving a three star rating as a placeholder out of kindness, but so far it's been a frustrating one star experience.
I absolutely loved the follow up to the first book. I enjoyed all the characters and the translation of this novel is impeccable. I was engaged from start to finish. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
This book follows the stories of a French courtesan. If you are looking for a story filled with realness but also a hint of romance this is the story for you. I love the character development in the story and how honest the narrator is. It felt like I myself was experiencing the story through the narrators eyes.
The only bad thing I have to say is how sometimes the wording can get confusing. I would be reading the story but some parts would not make any sense. And some parts of the story felt very rushed.
Other than that the story, flow, plot, and overall performance was very good.