Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Queen Charlotte [Koningin Charlotte]

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

This is basically the tv show/limited series but you get to read the inner thoughts/context behind certain moments, such as George’s experience running into the gardens naked late at night and Charlotte claiming she was Venus. We get the third-person, past-tense POVs of Brimsley, Agatha, Charlotte, and George.

It was a tender and bittersweet read, and I teared up while reading because I could vividly remember the scenes from Netflix lol. I definitely winced each time characters were discussing George’s mental health because he is called “broken” and “a mad man” multiple times. He never receives a specific diagnosis and everyone talks around it, but it was frustrating to hear mental health discussed as such a horrible, disdainful, shameful thing. I recognize that is representative “of the times” but it still felt uncomfortable reading the ableism and prejudice they all possessed.

Overall, this was a quick and easy historical romance to read, mostly because I was envisioning the tv series the entire time. I highly recommend the audiobook as the narration was excellent!

see content warnings below 🤎

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_alyssar_'s review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.0

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danajoy's review against another edition

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emotional reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

This is so like the show.
It doesn't have the bridgerton era storyline but outside that it's largely the same.

It was fun to read but I had already watched the series and there was very little added by the novelisation. It was nice to be in the world again.

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iamamyyyyy's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I probably would have enjoyed more if I had not watched the Netflix show. The book screams cash grab to me. Except for the very beginning and very end, the book does not jump between timelines like the show which works well for the flow of the book. There is one major plotline from the show that was not in the book. Other than those changes, the book is almost identical to the show down to dialogue, descriptions, and facial expressions. The internal monologue of each character (book told from POV of Charlotte, George, Brimsley, and Agatha) does little to expand on what is well portrayed in the show so ultimately what was the point of this book? It's just a novelization of a script.

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sarahsbookss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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blewballoon's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I've read all of the Bridgerton books and I do think I liked this better? Maybe? It has more going on than the typical Bridgerton story and I liked that we got perspective chapters from characters outside of the romantic couple, it made the scope of the story bigger and allowed the reader to see the stakes more clearly. I did find the story a bit repetitive and frustrating though.

One of the main plots is that the king "is mad" and has these "episodes" and he hires this super evil sadistic doctor (who literally tortures puppies) and the king repeatedly dismisses and then re-hires this doctor. If something goes well, he dismisses him, at the slightest conflict, he's back to the clearly horrible doctor to get tortured. Apart from that, there are two occasions of either the king or queen overhearing and misinterpreting something the other one said in conversation to the king's mother and then that causing a big conflict that they could have resolved by just telling the other person they overheard and asking what they meant. And they don't EVER talk about it! The queen eventually just gets over what she heard (even though it was taken out of context) and the king never finds out if the queen meant what she said either, she just eventually goes and rescues him from the doctor and he never brings up what he overheard.

I think the Lady Danbury chapters were my favorite, they had a good balance of humor and gravity. I liked the chapters from the perspective of the attendants for the King and Queen

and their little romance

I wish there had been more for them, though. I listened to this on audiobook and I thought the narration was good, but I did speed it up (1.25 I think). I have not watched the corresponding Netflix show yet, I wanted to read the novelization first, but I will say that the intros to the chapters that were like "[Character name][place][time]" reminded me of the headings of scenes in a script.

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josie_nerdosaurus's review against another edition

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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