A review by kuraias
The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn

4.0

Now here's a protagonist who is smart, witty, and stands up for herself. I pretty much fell in love with Miranda - when I think I was supposed to fall in love with Turner. I'm not so sure what I think about him. While I do see why she loves him, some aspects of him are not really that likable.

Spoiler

Yes, she does want to be kissed by him, but their first kiss as a whole felt a lot more like an assault to me than like a consentual love scene. Later scenes make up for this to some extent, but I couldn't quite forgive Turner for this. He also tends to be quite patronising. Eugh.

One of my favourite scenes was the one in which Miranda walks by a bookshop and sees this beautiful edition of a book she likes. It's love at first sight so she enters the shop and wants to buy it. The shopkeeper all but physically kicks her out because it's a gentlemen's bookshop, and the literature is not suited for women (I hated him as much as Miranda did, and so will you). She fights for her right to buy it

Spoiler

and even comes back later with Turner - resulting in a broken shopkeeper nose but no book for her. Finally, Turner gives it to her as a present to make up for not being able to say "I love you". I found that to be a rather weak ending.

The end was pretty weak. A couple of pages more would have been a very good idea here since the story felt a bit squeezed and rushed. I was pretty close to taking two stars, since it was also entirely foreseeable and stereotypical.

Spoiler

She almost dies during childbirth and that's when he finally realises that yes, he loves her. And from that point onward it's suddenly the easiest thing to say. Quinn's (and Turner's) claim that it was the baby that made him realise was not very convincing.

However, the book overall was entertaining enough to make me read it within less than two days, so I decided on four rather than three stars.