A review by mtstellens
Queen Charlotte by Shonda Rhimes, Julia Quinn

2.0

You can definitely tell that Quinn got some help in this one. This was much funnier than the other books which was nice, and I liked that there were things going on other than the romance. I think the thing that I disliked about it is everything they added about race, NOT FOR THE SAME REASONS THAT BEN SHAPERIO WOULD DISLIKE IT. I think that the way that the show has handled race up to this point was good, having it be color blind but incorporating some other cultures as well like with the second season. When you start to actually analyze race there are implications to that. It is already hard to root for the Queen of England already knowing the horrors of colonialism, but the implications of having an openly Black queen if a nation whose wealth is built on slavery and subjugation of people that look like her and have her not think about that at all is weird, it felt kind of jarring. I think that if the rest of the world was more fleshed out, the history of having non white people in the ton at all, having some sort of history would help us understand the context of this world and how it differs from actual history. Without that we assume that the history is the same as in our world. I also was confused by the premise of the book? I am unsure as to why the ton needed to be integrated in the first place? Why would they choose Charlotte when they were racist? They would definitely care much more about having an ‘impure bloodline’. Just wish that there was more internal consistency. Maybe I missed something, but overall it's hard to stop questioning and thinking about the actual history of England when you open the can.