This isn't typically my genre, but I was looking for a lighter read and I'm always interested in reading queer stories. I came to this book after I saw it won the Lammy for Gay Romance. Read Camille’s review in its entirety here. Most of the events, however, are concentrated around what happens in the time between his mother dying and his being imprisoned and the resolution of that event. Because this is Joseph’s autobiography, we get to follow him from as young an age as the character can remember to his present day, which is 1778 or so, when he is about sixteen. This helps establish the system of employment-by-apprenticeship, medical aid consisting of bleeding the bad “humours,” the supposed evils of bathing, and the villification of the poor by sending people to workhouses. Through Joseph, readers enjoy first-hand accounts of how life is lived. I think this choice in narrative style allows for the realities of life in 1770s London to be made amply clear without resorting to long descriptive paragraphs. Joseph Chapman, My Molly Life is a story told from first-person perspective and, as we later find out, is something of an autobiography of (the fictional) Joseph Chapman.
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