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A review by ellaellaellaetc
The Duke and I by Julia Quinn
1.5
okay I finally starting reading bridgerton! I decided when the show first came out (and I watched a lot of book reviews/roasts) that I would never read the books. despite loving the show in all it's flawed glory, I knew that the books would not be for me (I was right.). I decided to read them anyway when the (spoilers) francesca female lover interest plot twist came in the show and I decided that I needed to know the tea before her season (that will probably come out in like 4 years time let's be real) but to fully get the tea I resigned myself to reading all of the books in this series.
this is regency period romance about daphne (I just realised that this is the second romance book I've read this month featuring a protagonist named daphne lol) who is a woman on the shelf (she's in our in society for a few years but has not yet married) and simon who is a rake with daddy issues and a good friend of daphne's older brother, anthony. they have a fake courtship so that daphne looks desirable (simon is, shocker, a duke) and so that simon is left alone by ladies trying to marry him (he never wants to marry or have children even though he has just inherited his father's estate). I got exactly what I expected from this tbh.
okay so first what I liked: I liked how they dealt with simon's stammer and I thought that him shutting down and acting all mysterious so that he doesn't have to talk was an interesting idea for a male protagonist! I also thought that colin and daphne's bond was very sweet and not really in the show at all?? also that epilogue was wild but lowkey I liked it.
the tv show stuck the the book better than I thought (although apparently this is not the case for later seasons) however, in the show you get so much more of the side characters which is a great way to drum up excitement for the next few seasons because the audience already know the character/s but also is good because simon and daphne are lowkey boring😭😭 like they're not terrible but I don't know why they like each other?? they just randomly love each other for no reason?? also, on another note, it was also super jarring to randomly hear about simon's blue eyes and blond hair😭😭 I was def picturing rege jean page the entire time. also (slightly unrelated) I thought that violet (the mum) was so annoying when I love her in the show!
>one last thing though (spoilers), is that I don't think I could review this book without mentioning the r*pe scene that is written off as something that is not a big deal? if you don't know, simon never wants kids so before they marry, he tells daphne that he "can't" have kids and she assumes that he means that he's infertile rather than just not wanting them. daphne is a regency lady who doesn't understand sex at all so she doesn't know how baby's are actually made and whenever they have sex, simon always pulls out. daphne finally realises what he's doing and they have an argument and he comes home extremely drunk and they have sex and she forces him to finish inside her despite his verbal protests.
I don't think that it is necessarily wrong to include stuff like this in books (stuff like this happen in real life every day) but why this is terrible is that this is justified by the narrative. what daphne does is not viewed as a bad thing and it ends up being treated as simon's fault for not telling her how baby's are made and he has to apologise to her? I understand that this book was released the 2000 when attitudes were different but that's not really an excuse for rape. this conflict about the babies could have been resolved in any number of ways, this scene did not have to exist for this plot point to reach it's peak and I think it's really disgusting that this is part of the book. </spoiler for that reason, I can't give it any higher than a 1.5 stars
this is regency period romance about daphne (I just realised that this is the second romance book I've read this month featuring a protagonist named daphne lol) who is a woman on the shelf (she's in our in society for a few years but has not yet married) and simon who is a rake with daddy issues and a good friend of daphne's older brother, anthony. they have a fake courtship so that daphne looks desirable (simon is, shocker, a duke) and so that simon is left alone by ladies trying to marry him (he never wants to marry or have children even though he has just inherited his father's estate). I got exactly what I expected from this tbh.
okay so first what I liked: I liked how they dealt with simon's stammer and I thought that him shutting down and acting all mysterious so that he doesn't have to talk was an interesting idea for a male protagonist! I also thought that colin and daphne's bond was very sweet and not really in the show at all?? also that epilogue was wild but lowkey I liked it.
the tv show stuck the the book better than I thought (although apparently this is not the case for later seasons) however, in the show you get so much more of the side characters which is a great way to drum up excitement for the next few seasons because the audience already know the character/s but also is good because simon and daphne are lowkey boring😭😭 like they're not terrible but I don't know why they like each other?? they just randomly love each other for no reason?? also, on another note, it was also super jarring to randomly hear about simon's blue eyes and blond hair😭😭 I was def picturing rege jean page the entire time. also (slightly unrelated) I thought that violet (the mum) was so annoying when I love her in the show!
I don't think that it is necessarily wrong to include stuff like this in books (stuff like this happen in real life every day) but why this is terrible is that this is justified by the narrative. what daphne does is not viewed as a bad thing and it ends up being treated as simon's fault for not telling her how baby's are made and he has to apologise to her? I understand that this book was released the 2000 when attitudes were different but that's not really an excuse for rape. this conflict about the babies could have been resolved in any number of ways, this scene did not have to exist for this plot point to reach it's peak and I think it's really disgusting that this is part of the book. </spoiler for that reason, I can't give it any higher than a 1.5 stars