blewballoon's Reviews (763)

I read this with a couple friends as a sort of impromptu mini book club. I would recommend it for a book club as there are a lot of interesting concepts in terms of the fantasy and social commentary. As one of my friends put it, this book definitely goes by the idea that "subtlety is for cowards" and most of the social commentary is completely overt. Our group was mixed in how much they liked how heavy handed it was. Some found it refreshing, others found it broke immersion in the story. One of the characters, to me, was especially unbearable and I would groan when I got to her chapters. The fantasy aspect of the human avatars of cities was amazing and I loved the concept of using constructs to channel their power. 

I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about it besides that it was by the same author as "Red, White and Royal Blue," which I liked. I am glad I went into it this way and was able to speculate about more aspects of the book than if I had read the summary or any of the reviews. I loved the romance, I loved the sense that something out of the ordinary was happening, I loved the mysteries, I loved the found family vibes of the apartment and the restaurant. This set the bar high for me with romance and captures well what I like out of a romance novel. 

Re-read this in preparation for Season 3 of the show. I had forgotten how much fun the Bridgerton audiobook are, Rosalyn Landor is such a perfect narrator for them. They have their (problematic) flaws, sometimes the writing is repetitive, and sometimes the humor comes off as more annoying than funny, but these are mild complaints. There was less spice than I remembered as well, and the spice is more implied than graphic. I hadn't read a lot of spicy historical romances back when I was reading the Bridgerton books for the first time, it's interesting to compare to what I've read in more contemporary books. Overall, I had a delightful time, and it made me think more fondly of the other books in this series. I think I'll try some of the spin-offs as well. 

There was so much content here I didn't like, and most of the characters were either really awful, kind of awful, or a stereotype. I actually think the movie made some great changes while remaining a faithful adaptation, and I think I would have had a more positive take on the story if I had only watched that. I can see why this is popular, and I think the parts about the marsh and the wildlife are really nice, but for me it ticked a lot of my "hate this" boxes.