#jo: uwu of course babe

[elisabeth515]

“The General’s Mistress”review (part 1)

(Part 2)

(Part 3)

(Part 4)

About: Basically this thing is based on Ida St. Elme’s memoirs (and plus some spiritual stuff—like angels and divination🧐)

Foreword

I am going to attempt to review a historical fiction properly after the horrors I’ve seen from Alison Pataki’s Sisi series (Elisabeth hates it so much). Although a very strong opposition from my dead best friend Michel, I decided to read Jo Graham’s “The General’s Mistress” because I feel really, really called to read it, after reading some reviews on GoodReads, also the encouragement from mutals on tumblr.

I hope you all will enjoy this entertaining reaction/review on this book which, hopefully I am going to finish it despite the fact that I have to finish two philosophy essays, my French writing assignment and prepare for the upcoming maths exam in January (#UniLife). Now, to the main thing!

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First Impression

To be honest, although I was triggered by the fact that it was based on Ida St. Elme’s “Memoirs of a Contemporary” (which, as you know from some older posts, I don’t really like it no matter how intriguing the author is), this book is probably my cup of tea, given to my great interest in the Napoleonic era, also some supernatural, witchy things that reminded me of my weird witchcraft journey which has ended just some months ago. Given to the reviews thats I’ve seen on GoodReads, I think it is quite a nice and entertaining novel—especially because Michel Ney is in it. After reading the sample, my feelings are positive as I was pretty much hooked into the story.

The Reaction

This post is going to be a collection of my reactions, and impressions to chapter 1 to 13 of this book, which I managed to finish it in a lightning speed of 3 hours (with note-taking on my phone). So far, I am on chapter 24 (and now taking a break by charging my kindle) and it’s quite good I would say, at least better than what I expected, somehow, considering I am a bit reserved when it comes to historical fiction—like the accuracy is super, super, super important to me.

From the reviews, I have already been warned for 18+ content so reader’s discretion is advised. Before starting the book I have already been trained by watching porn with a straight face and I’ve passed them easily. Well, let’s just have a rough go through on my reaction to chapters 1-14 because I have too much things to talk about in this.

At first the writing is quite fine—here we have the very first glimpse of Ney and the MC basically swooned—as someone who loves Ney too much sometimes I approved

Yes we shall S W O O N in front of this babe

Well, apparently she no like her husband Jan (whom she married when she was 12, by the way) so she decided to go to be a sugar baby amd goes with the name Ida, and Victor Moreau is her sugar daddy

Everything is rather fine, until I found some errors in the clothing that the MC is wearing—dresses from the late 18th century to early 19th century are not closed with hooks (*at the back I mean); it was a late 19th century (La Belle Époque/Late Victorian) thing.

Edit: just looked up some more info again, apparently dress hooks also exists in some regency gowns for back closure, nevertheless, it would not have existed in a 1795 round gown.

By the way she is supposed to be wearing a pair of stays, not corset as it’s a future invention derived from stays. (This is somehow just nitpicking but this is very important)

Since she was supposed to be wearing a 1790s regency dress, I somehow just kinda want to say that she’s probably wearing a round gown since it was fashionable at that time; the square neckline started to come out in that decade, but I personally doubted that she would have been wearing one, since the wrap neckline or round neckline is more fashionable I would say.

Here is a fashion plate from the year when Ida started to have an affair with general Moreau (source)

Also, she would have been wearing a big handkerchief around her neckline (a fashionable thing in the 1790s).

Nevertheless the author got it right when it comes to the first steamy part when Moreau started to do her—before the drawers, dress historian guessed that women wear nothing underneath at the lower part of the body (except the mensuration belt which acted as the pads/tampons that we wear nowadays)

I kinda need to substitute the steamy parts with Moreau doing something to a sentiment rock to make myself get over it because idk—I just kinda reading them with horror because I can’t really stand smut for historical guys to an extent-

Oh no the description of babeythighs I’m ded- *proceeds dying of laughter while a confused Michel Ney watching me in the background*

Of course our MC just goes like “OMG OMG OMG I LOVE HIM😍😍😍😍😍” whenever Ney is mentioned and I feel somehow personally attached 🌚👌🏻

So there are some tarot scenes that somehow reminded me the days of me opening a tarot reading shop for earning funds for amino events, haha. It seemed like a pretty nice foretelling of the things coming ahead—like the main girl is going to be the master of her fate under the war ahead, yada yada

Another thing to note is that the MC has another persona called Charles and well, there are steamy parts for Charles as well besides Ida. The MC was seemingly super confident in “her crossdressing alter” (which you would first meet him the very first chapters of this story).

In the very first acquaintance between Ida and Michel, he kinda seemed awkward and cute which is pretty cute I guess- (well Michel in this said the MC is the most beautiful woman in the world and she has “the face of an angel”—I can faintly hear the one irl in the background saying he begged to differ lol—but spoilers say that there’s something going between him and the MC thus the “unusual behaviour”? Michel seemed a bit smitten to me in that scene ngl)

Of course the MC is super smitten by our babey who has unlimited charms despite not being considered good-looking; so she wrote a letter to Moreau and Ney respectively and Moreau found out and yeeted her out of the house.

In overall the pacing is fine, we are in the lens of our MC Ida/Charles and those foretelling through tarot is pretty cool in my opinion. There were some parts that I guess are connected to the previous books in the series which I have not read, but at least I can get the thing. One additional note is that it is written in American, so some terms might required a dictionary to understand if you have been learning British English.

Last but not the least, happy holidays and I shall yeet back to my philosophy readings now UwU