This book was... fine? I don't know if I've just grown a lot as a person since I read Gentlemen's Guide, and I don't necessarily need this kind of story the way I might have as a younger person. A lot of it to me felt kind of very This Is the Point, and there's something going on about Felicity's refusal to engage other pathways of medical care (nursing, for example,) that while Lee speaks a little bit to other parts of this in the afterword on history, comes across in a weird way. (Why a doctor versus a midwife etc.? What's going on class-wise with that?) Basically like the nuance that Lee has in the afterword.... doesn't really make it into the text itself, which, I know it's a YA book, but I also think teens deserve nuanced history in their historical fiction! 

If folks are looking for an asexual MC, this is a cool book though I think that the struggle of like not having a Term Back Then for This hinders some of this because it feels like it has to be made So Glaringly Obvious that it feels like "yes we get it, it's great for her, oh we're going over it AGAIN?"

But some of this is really compelling--at times it really was suspenseful and felt like I had to keep turning pages to find out what happened--and again, I get that I'm not in a place where I Need this book the way some teens might Need this book, so I'm glad it exists for them. I just also wish there was a little more subtlety to it in some ways, if only because I didn't need to be hit with the point about Women in History the way some might.