Yet again, I love the female protagonist of this Bridgerton novel, Penelope. She gets 4 stars. However, yet again, the male protagonist is a pretty biYet again, I love the female protagonist of this Bridgerton novel, Penelope. She gets 4 stars. However, yet again, the male protagonist is a pretty big asshole. Colin was I guess not as bad as Benedict, but still pretty bad. Can Julia Quinn not write a book without having the male protagonist's inner monologue consistently insult his eventual wife only to later quantify why she IS in fact beautiful and amazing while still objectifying her, and then be extremely controlling of her and in this case actually injure her (grabbing her arm so hard and so long that it will leave a bruise later??), and it's all okay cause he's so devilishly handsome? We get it, it's regency England, but I'm a little sick of reading male protagonists with this fun little asshole quirk and hardly any redeeming qualities. (Anthony has so far been the only exception, but even he constantly talked about how Kate was not actually beautiful and would never be comparable to her sister.)...more
Had a rocky start for me. The characters didn't immediately draw me in, and some of them were a little hard to nail down in terms of personality, it mHad a rocky start for me. The characters didn't immediately draw me in, and some of them were a little hard to nail down in terms of personality, it made their actions and dialogue feel a little out of nowhere at times. I also didn't really care that much about the relationships between the characters, and that ended up being the largest chunk of the meandering plot. But the ending picked up and got more interesting, the twists were pretty good, and the outcome was satisfying. I didn't really enjoy the potential supernatural subplot since it didn't have a strong enough presence to make it feel necessary, I'd have preferred if those parts about the canyon had just stayed metaphorical and that the themes remained only about human nature rather than blaming the bad actions of the characters predominantly on the canyon. Also, as a consumer of true crime media, I was excited for that aspect of the book, but then that ended up being a fairly small part of the plot as well as being portrayed in an almost entirely negative light. Since the true crime podcast was the whole set up for the book, I wish the author had made it a point to say that not all true crime podcasts and consumers of true crime media are sensationalist, uncaring, and exploitative. True crime is a safe space for many people, especially women, to learn about and discuss the things that fuel our living nightmares. There are true crime podcasters that advocate for victims rights, care about in depth research and facts, and even some that contribute to the solving of horrible crimes to put victims and their families at peace....more
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