If I pick another duff book this month, I'm going to give up reading and start watching boxsets instead. And this was a Christmas present!

An inferior mash-up of Call Me By Your Name and The Talented Mr Ripley, neither the novel nor the eponymous antihero live up to the many enticing adjectives lobbed at them. Mr Lavelle is far from charming, ironic and especially satirical ('Satire, Benjamin? How drunk are you?') He's just an overgrown teenager, trying to shock younger kids by using rude words. He is a complete knob, which is handy, because that's all Benjamin wants from him. (Can you guess who didn't believe that either man actually loved the other?)

In fact, the best part of this book is the beautiful cover, which - I must confess - lured me in. The historical setting is limited to men stripping off breeches and stockings instead of jeans and t shirts before they shag each other and completely ruined by the anachronistic dialogue ('moron', Mr Lavelle's favourite insult, was coined in 1910, for instance). The characters are all flimsy cliches, from the scoffing toffs to the leering 'sodomites', and the plot reads like a Victorian melodrama.

Recommended for readers seeking gay soft porn with literary pretensions - everyone else, try Brideshead Revisited instead. ( )

I am not sure about this one. Loved some parts, hated some bits, got bored now and then and truly loved some paragraphs.
Edgar and Benjamin Bowen are brothers in their early twenties who set out in the 1700 to Italy and France for their Tour to meet Quality People and make a good repertoire of classy friends for when they get back to England. Seems like that was the thing to do back then, who knows.
Raised almost as recluses, they are overwhelmed when they are finally released into the wild, to put it one way.
At the beginning of their trip, Benjamin meets Horace Lavelle, who is quite the character and becomes the centre of Benjamin’s universe.
This acquaintance sets in motion a series of events that lead to a tragic ending; one that is as senseless and cruel as it can be.
I really liked some passages about how Benjamin describes his feelings towards Lavelle; but truly hated the graphic porn bits. I am not a homophobic, I just don’t like to read about sex scenes in extreme detail, whichever the gender of the participants.
What bored me about the story were the constant History lessons the writer sneaks in. It was fine a couple of times, but it is a constant through the book and that made me yawn.
My heart broke with Benjamin’s mother and then it broke again towards the end with Benjamin’s last narrative.
I am truly right smack in the middle of this book regarding my feelings. Don’t know if I recommend it or not. What I do know is that I will not read a book by this author again. Not helpful, I know, but it is what it is. ( )

Their parents have educated Edgar and Benjamin with the full 18th century rationalism and knowledge, and send them off for a tour in mainland Europe to make the social connections to establish themselves as gentlemen in London on their return. But when the stop in Paris reveals family secrets they never knew, and when the some of the English people they have been friendly with reveal to Benjamin they actually despise the kind of social climbing Edgar and Benjamin are trying to achieve, Benjamin is ready to have his eyes opened by mysterious Horace Lavalle. Good-looking, obviously well-read, and independent minded, Lavelle argues for rejecting all rules and hypocricy of polite society, and Benjamin's life is never the same again. ( )

Benjamin and his brother Edgar are embarking on their 'Grand Tour'. Sons of a rich man of trade and educated in a home full of intellectual conversation they are knowledgeable about the works of Voltaire but not of life and society. Edgar wants to better his social status and currys favour with the beau monde in Paris but is humiliated by the nobility as not being one of them. Benjamin is more concerned that there are family secrets related to his mother and then he meets Mr Lavelle. Glamorous and outrageous, Horace Lavelle excites Benjamin like never before and he has to face up to his true nature.

This is an interesting take on society in the 18th Century, the prejudices - whether it is worse to be a molly or a jew - and the way that money can conquer everything apart from class. I did enjoy quite a lot of it but felt that the story got a little frantic towards the end and I didn't feel that Benjamin's outcome was necessarily what would have happened, rather a convenient plot ending for a certain audience. ( )