All the Fuss About Bridgerton - Bridgerton Books Review

 I am aware that there are many people like me who have read most of the Bridgerton Books and watched season 1 of Netflix’s current favorite series. Let me say this up front – the series is better than the books and here is why.

• Main characters and supporting characters have depth and a role to play.
• Impeccable casting choices by the producers.
• Use of characters who are not part of the first book The Duke and I, such as that of Marina (who appears in book five To Sir Phillip With Love).
• Changes to the main plot to make the stories interesting and to introduce conflict, for example, there is no prince in The Duke and I.
• The addition of royalty among the supporting characters and Eloise’s quest to finding Lady Whistledown.
• Lady Whistledown being a real character with depth and layers. She exists only until halfway through book four Romancing Mister Bridergton and only serves as an introduction to each chapter (yes, she is Penelope Featherington). In subsequent books, the author replaces Lady Whistledown with excerpts of letters the characters write each other.
• Lady Danbury's character, which not only exists to add to the drama and fun but also to give Simon's backstory much needed detail.  

There are twelve books in total so far, out of which I have read eight. Each of these eight novels is dedicated to the love story of each of the Bridgerton siblings (who have not been shown to have the same hair colour in the dramatised series, which is a recurring fact in all the books). For me book two The Viscount Who Loved Me and book 8 On The Way to The Wedding, stand out.

All the books are formulaic. The author, Julia Quinn, found a definitely comfortable template to follow and used it just as one would use a template, to tell the same story over and over again, with the characters named differently. All the heros are men of questionable reputations and most the heroines are Regency debutants, who are different from the other debutants because they are innocent, feisty, witty, tom-boyish, appealing, so on and so forth. The heroine of book three, An Offer From A Gentleman is not a Regency debutant but is the victim of similar tropes. The conflicts in most of the books are either minimal or very easily overcome. There are also too many pages dedicated to each of the heroines of these eight books losing their virginity – sometimes with the same exact words to describe each of these scenes.

Why book two The Viscount Who Loved Me and book eight On The Way to The Wedding stand out for me is because book two is where the author created the template that she would reuse and recycle, until reading and writing both become a chore, and because the conflict was interesting. Book eight is where the author deviates from the template and for the first time introduces a villain who is very scary. I did enjoy this change.

The things I did not like about the books:

• Being set in the Regency period, the author and the editors should have paid attention to the difference between British English and American English. For example, apologise is repeatedly apologize, and realise is realize. This irritated me but many readers may not even notice. In addition to this, some sentence structures made me question a lot of things.
• The main characters of one book, for example, Daphne and Simon from book one The Duke and I, are not even supporting characters in the other books. Their only role is to host a ball, which becomes a setting of importance in each of the following novels.
• The countless and repetitive sex scenes – I am not sure if people are this horny and the dramatised series is also guilty of indulging in it, but this is what apparently sells in both literature and televised/streamed entertainment. 
• The author trying to pay tribute to J.K. Rowling by introducing us to the character of Hermione Watson in book eight. This character is exactly opposite to the beloved and powerful Hermoine Granger or the fiercely feminist actress Emma Watson, so I am not sure if this was entirely unintentional or if the author ran out of truly British names.

Why I read the books:

• They are meant for easy reading, especially if you do not want to spend a lot of mental energy to understand what you are reading.
• I was too tired to think about what I was reading (I ruminate on most things I read).
• I wanted to be done with them quickly (average reading time for each book is 8 to 9 hours).

I am now curious to see how the writers will use the source material to take the series forward. Author Julia Quinn is a consultant for the series but is not a part of the writing team.

If you have read the books, please add a comment. I would love to know what you like or dislike about the books and what your expectations are for the series.