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Author: Julia Quinn

Bridgertons Series Book 1

Genre: Romance, Historical Romance, Regency, Adult (sort of)

Guess what? This rarely happens to me, but it took me over a month to read The Duke and I, shocking! I know. 📖😵

And I finish half the book and a night and a morning, with some hours of sleep in between and also like an hour of work thrown in there. I mean, it’s outrageous to believe that for the whole of February, I didn’t feel the need to pick up the book, and when I did, I often put it down after a few pages because I would drift very often and not know what I was reading, the words would not compute. 

I’m sorry for this author, JQ, but maybe it’s something in her narrative, and I’m sorry for all the fans out there, but it’s the truth. Alright, alright. I will begin to talk a bit more about the plot and story and will also compare it with the Netflix show, I watched it before reading this. So… possible spoilers ahead.👀

The Duke and I

About the book

In the book, we start off by knowing that there is someone out there who runs a gossip column about the ton or London’s society in the early 1800s. Then start meeting all the Bridgerton brothers and sister, the other sisters are apparently not as important here, they are barely mentioned by name and do not make any significant appearance, I will assume this is because of their age. Unless you count the youngest one, Hyacinth, who is ten and made a little special appearance. 

If I’m being completely honest, I rather liked reading and getting to know the three older brothers, Anthony, Benedict (who actually was not around much), and Colin (who fascinates me), these three, when they were in the scene, seemed to make things far more interesting then if it were just Daphne and her thoughts, which annoyed me a little bit. Now, Simon (our male protagonist), he got on my nerves, there was such a stupidity to his reasoning, I mean, come one, this girl (who is not that young), had to come with her lovely touch and teach you and make you see that you were being a blathering idiot? I suppose that was the point, but I have read other regency, romance, historical romance with the same plot; alright not the same, I mean to say that the guy sees himself as horrible and the girl fixes him or the other way around, and they have better reasons, and the story flows better, and you want it all to be okay; but this? It was such a, really? You hate your father, and you rather be miserable forever than let go of it and be content with your life, seriously? 

But it was not just that, it was the constant hatred, the utter mind-numbing fact that his reason, eventually, would shift, you are sure he will change his mind because it’s a dumb reason, I mean you know the whole book that he will change his thinking and love her, you literally see it coming the entire time. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this book is bad, it has its moments, and I had a few laughs, but there are others out there, which are better, I apologize if I offend anyone, but this is how I feel. Have you ever read a book by Silvia Violet? Or Eve Langlais? They are not particularly known authors, but they are awesome, and I love their stories, even if they are more on the adult side when it comes to the language and tone of the books. 

I didn’t mean to go on rambling like that, but I had to let it out. I did enjoy it (in some ways) but I could not, sometimes, decipher whether we were in Daphne’s POV or Simon’s, when you were on one side, you suddenly found yourself seeing it from the other, that threw me as well. 

Now, a bit of a comparison with the Netflix show, which I can understand is a success with the number of sexual encounters happening there. 

About the show (and the book)

I have been waiting to write this part since I finished watching the show and started reading the book, and in the prologue, we found that Simon is completely different from the Simon on the show, I mean the actor is great (Regé-Jean Page is gorgeous, and I fell for Simon immediately with his acting) but let us be clear he looks nothing like the Simon from the book, and neither do any of the characters, not even Daphne, not even Violet Bridgerton.

I don’t know how they cast Daphne as blond and blue eyes when she is supposed to be dark-haired and dark-eyed, completely off. While Violet, her mother, is the one who is blonde with blue eyes in the book. I’m sorry if I am a stickler for wanting adaptations to stay true to what the author of a book originally wrote and thought of their characters. Simon is supposed to have blue eyes, for Pete’s sake. All the Bridgerton brothers are supposed to be insanely tall and alike, I mean, they tried with the hair and the complexion but were they successful? Were they really? 

Omitting all of this because they performed their characters well, especially Regé-Jean, I think he was the one who had the character down the most, I believe he might have read and studied the book far better than the others. Omitting all of this, as I said, let us concentrate on the fact that the show has only the names, the main plot and Lady Wistledown from The Duke and I, the rest of it, it is a mix of the following: Gossip Girl, Pride and Prejudice and The Tudors. Mix those three, and you get the tone of the show. 

Again, I am not saying it is bad, I know maybe my tone is a little loud here, but I thought it was worth mentioning that some of the actors (*cough* the main actress) sometimes spoke like Keira Knightly in Pride and Prejudice (2005), there I said it. Also, there are other details on the show that I am going to guess come from the other books in the Bridgerton series, which I have not read. I would have jumped to The Viscount Who Loved Me since that sounds far more interesting if it were not for the fact that I wanted to finish reading this one so I could know what I’m talking about, and thus I finished the rest of the book in record time after spending so much time avoiding it. 

And now I am free to read Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth, Chain of Gold by Cassie Clare, which is out today and I am dying to know what happens in it, and also The Shadow Queen, Shadow and Bone, Caraval, and so many other books and I feel like I am behind now because of this one.

What can I say, I like writing about books even when they make me want to crawl inside the book and throttle the characters. Did you read this book? Did you like it? I know I come on hard sometimes, but since we’re all readers, I know you will get my emotions and frustrations. Thank you for sticking to the end of my rambling, and I hope you will share or like it. 😉📚

Happy reading, dearies!

Update:

Sorry, I forgot to leave a link to the book in case you would like to get it. Here we go The Duke and I – Book.