Oh to Be a Gentleman

I really enjoyed this book, it is the story of eight completely different personalities coming together on a Mediterranean cruise, all trying to discover themselves, or escape their everyday lives. Each chapter is dedicated to an individual, to learn their reason for being on the cruise, what they think about the person they are interacting with and describing the trip they are taking, thoughts and feelings. Every person is unique, and the ages range from 30s to 70, with varying situations in regard to childhood, education, marriage, children.

The interactions are great and very descriptive. The underlining reason for the book, 'What is a Gentleman', is it an outdated concept? How is it now perceived by women in today's modern world? creates great discussion points.

This short story gave a concise, yet deep, dive into analyzing basic human behavior when presented with loss, whether death or relationships. A ship of 8 wildly different personalities cruises along the Mediterranean to find themselves, and learn more about the real meaning of life. Fun, easy, and eye opening to see how they learn to open to each other and learn from their past relationships on how to move forward into a fulfilling life,

Thank you NetGalley, author Clive Morton, and The Book Guild for giving me a free arc of this book in exchange for an honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
3.5 stars
The books follows eight passengers on cruise ship from Gibraltar and heading off to Barcelona, Rome, Pisa and Florence. Each came on this cruise for a different reason, but all have a common thread that has tied them together and that is the ideas on relationships. Some have gone through divorce, others have lost the communication with their partner, and others are searching for their perfect match in meaning less nights of passion. Who will be able to return to port with a new outlook on relationships and who will bring more to the port than what they left with?
This was a very quick read. The author did a great job creating characters with diverse personalities as well as interesting backgrounds. I enjoyed the different experiences these character brought to their travels. Ralph was my least favorite of all the characters! He was so self absorbed and really learned nothing from the cruise nor the people that challenged him to change. I thought Liz was such a sincere character and I hoped for the best for the next chapter in her life. Overall, I really enjoyed this novella and hope to read more books by this author!

A Mediterranean cruise brings together 8 people from very different backgrounds together. All lone traveller, they are seated together at dinner. This short story focus’s on each of the characters in turn as we discover what led to them being aboard the ship.

I have been loving books set on cruise ships and boats recently so when I saw the setting of this story I requested it immediately. It was the kind of book that I wouldn’t say was bad but it didn’t wow me. It felt like I didn’t take much from my time reading it. We follow 8 different passengers as they embarked on the cruise. Some of them were very pleasant , real ‘gentleman’ whereas others were not so likeable. One of them in particular was pretty appealing in fact. I enjoyed following the characters as they explore the locations of the cruise because that’s what I really enjoy abut cruise stories. However, this wasn’t the main focus of the story so there wasn’t a huge amount of this or seeing them doing activities on the ship. I must admit I didn’t actually realise this was a short story until I started reading it and I think that was the main problem. We only get one short chapter with each character so some of them felt quite flat and one dimensional. You didn’t really have the time to get to know and connect with them. There was most definitely no room for character development. I enjoyed my time reading it and there wasn’t anything I really disliked but it felt flat. I think I would have enjoyed this story so much more if it was full length and offered the opportunity for lots of character development.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher The Book Guild for providing me with a copy of this book or review.