I think these books are supposed to be funny, but I'm just not getting it. Elizabeth and Robert seem to be in a state of constant war, and everyone around them just finds it amusing? I don't feel entertained by either of them. More than anything, I think, I read their antics and just feel kind of embarrassed for them. I will say that the food-hogging characteristic of the Bradford family has been blessedly toned right down in this - it's a lightly used quirk, rather than a constant hammering of piggery, and is much more palatable for it - but unfortunately the endless repetition has been focused elsewhere. "Minx" is a cringe-inducing word at the best of times, and it doesn't improve after several hundred uses. (It's probably not several hundred, but if this were a drinking game I'd be at the hospital right now getting my stomach pumped.)

I don't mind that the whole thing is, shall we say, lacking in accurate historical detail. Mathewson made it clear in the prologue that she's not a primarily historical writer and she wasn't aiming for realism and you know what, good for her. Try new things and all that, I'm prepared to view it as history-lite, even if the daughter of an earl is going to a ball with nothing on under her dress. I am less forgiving of the not-like-other-girls trope, which is here in spades. I will admit the accuracy, though: Elizabeth is indeed not like other girls. She's ten times as annoying, at least.