The Duke and I
2.5 stars
Ugh. Writing was good, story was good, characters were good. For the most part I enjoyed it.
But *that* scene was so much worse than I’d expected. I knew they toned it down a bit for the show, but wow. And the utter lack of consequences, lack of remorse. Ruined everything.
Likewise, Simon’s stutter was poorly handled, in my opinion. Yes, most of the ableism surrounding it came from his father, which I’m fine with. Villains being ableist and thoroughly rebuked for such things are fine. Simon, too, had a lot of ableism and self hate, but again, internalized ableism is a very common, real thing.
But there were just some comments that really made it seem like if Simon *hadn’t* learned to talk well, he would be unworthy or damaged. As if it was only all okay because 90% of the time Simon was well spoken and didn’t stutter.
In the extended epilogue, we see one of Colin’s children is now nonverbal at 3, and Daphne thinks “[Penelope wanted] to take an action, to make her child whole.” A nonverbal person IS whole, and it’s quite ableist to say otherwise.

This was also quite different from the Netflix show, which I did enjoy much more than I enjoyed this. The characters were the same, and the general plot of Daphne and Simon was mostly the same, but we *only* saw Daphne and Simon. In the Bridgerton show, we see bits and pieces of each Bridgerton sibling A-E, as well as glimpses into the Featheringtons life. In The Duke and I, we get POVs only if Simon and Daphne with like, a couple paragraphs exceptions from Lady Bridgerton’s POV. We see a good bit of Anthony, Benedict, and Colin, and a few fun quips from Hyacinth, but we hear nothing at all from Eloise, about one sentence from Pen, two from Lady Danbury, and not much else. The mystery of Lady Whistledown is not explored. Her columns preface each chapter and are referred to throughout, but no one searches for her identity. Generally, the plot is much simplified in the book. I still enjoyed it, but the show was more engaging to me.