What an unfortunate disappointment. I saw the writer of this book mentioned during a documentary and decided to give it a try. This book is a collection of very brief looks at different historical characters and their sex lives or scandals. By the second story, I regretted renting the e-book. Farquhar describes the French King of Poland and Lithuania, Henri III, as an “ostentatious transvestite” who had friends that were “obsequious gays”. He makes the claim that Henri III was gay despite the fact that there’s plenty of evidence that he had mistresses. He also seems to draw a correlation between cross-dressing and sexuality which is inaccurate and oversimplified. Despite claiming Henri III was gay, a paragraph or so later Farquhar claims Henri III had an “almost incestuous” relationship with his mother. I’m not sure what constitutes as “almost” incestuous but the whole book is filled with vague, edgy statements like this. This book has inaccuracies and generalizations and is not presented in chronological order. I had to read to the end to get to Ancient Rome yet the book started with Catherine the Great for no discernible reason at all. I can’t really recommend this to anyone as it may give you incorrect or outlandish information.

I read this book as part of a reading challenge that required me to read a book with a house on the cover. I loved Of Mice and Men when I read it in High School but I was uncertain how I’d like Cannery Row. I actually ended up loving it! If I had to compare the two I would say both tackle sad topics and the struggles of the poor but Cannery Row is much more light hearted and has happier, almost comical moments. The story focuses on a single street in Monterey California and the poor but honest people who live there. Some of the major characters include a Chinese store owner, a bearded marine biologist who loves poetry and classical music, and a poor drunkard who has very bad luck. I loved that the story attempted to show that all people are good hearted or mean well on some level. The only thing preventing it from being 5 stars was the fact that some chapters discuss characters and situations that never come into play with the main characters or situations and though they add to the theme there’s one in particular that seems off (I won’t spoil it by saying what chapter but it is from the POV of an animal). However, that’s just my opinion. I did love the book overall and would recommend it. FYI- CW/ TW on the book for death, mental health, suicide, and racist portrayals of Chinese people.

Not terrible for a vocabulary book but it functions as literally nothing else. It gives lots of lots of words and sorts them by subject in a helpful way, though example sentences and IPA pronunciation guides for every word would have been nice.

3.5 stars. A very good book that delivers facts about Nigeria and the struggles of women and poor people therein without feeling like a simple list of facts. The different voices and styles of speech included in this novel are very impressive and the main character was someone who was very easy to root for and care about. The beginning quickly drew me in and by the middle of the book I simply had to know how it would finish so this book definitely does a good job of keeping you interested. The end of the book felt a bit over explained for me personally and some of the more feminist themes were made too obvious while I wish they had been left a little bit more nuanced for the reader. Still, this book was amazing and I highly recommend it.