I Read the BRIDGERTON Series So You Don't Have To 🐝💎

Hello everyone my name is dario welcome back to my channel and today or i should say over the next couple of days couple of weeks if we're being honest here i am going to be attempting to read all the bridgerton books with some caveats i will not be reading the duke and i or the vi count who loved me in this video but for two very different reasons when it comes to the My count who loved me i think you all know my feelings on that book i enjoyed it i enjoy book kate and anthony

but they really pale in comparison to show anthony in my mind i also recently reread that book in january and february so i just don't really want to reread it again when it comes to the duke and i however i have never read that book i will never read that book when it comes to the rest of the series i actually Have already read an offer from a gentleman and romancing mr burgerton which are benedict and colin stories respectively it's been over a year since i read those two books however so while i remember the

feelings that they elicited in me i don't quite remember what happened in those books and the whole point of this video is for me to tell you what goes down in these books without you having to read them so let's go ahead and Revisit my original goodreads reviews for both these books over a year ago i gave an offer from a gentleman two stars and opening lines of the review is oof period that's all i really have to say because this one was a slog my friends yeah uh at this point while i'm filming this

intro i have already reread this book and 2021 darya i agree i wholeheartedly agree as for Romancing mr bridgerton i gave this three stars but in my review i even say that it's closer to like a 3.5 star read i remember thinking back when i read this book that i feel like romancing mr richardson was the book that honestly had the most substance out of all three i feel like colin and penelope's conflict in their story was like the most realistic the most understandable i'm really excited for this experiment i am excited to read an

offer from a Gentleman and romancing mr bridgerton and see what exactly may make it into the show as for the other four siblings so eloise francesca hi something gregory i have heard from so many of the book readers that those four books are really great actually no sorry i take that back i have heard that francesca hyacinth and gregory's books are really great i have heard that eloise's book is uh Interesting i'm getting ahead of myself though so let's just rewind take it back and let's jump into an offer from a gentleman for the second

time but before we go any further i want to stop and thank the sponsor of this video hellofresh in the time that i've been using hellofresh i think the thing that stands out to me the most is just how much time money and frankly stress i'm saving myself i've sort of taken on the mantle of the cook in my house i'm Currently living with my parents and it's so nice to be able to just get a quick healthy and delicious meal done in 30 minutes or less all the recipes are super simple super easy to

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mouth so let's pretend That this wasn't filmed on the same night that i also filmed my intro and that i didn't change out of my dress because it was super uncomfortable and really sweaty and made out of really horrible material okay so an offer from a gentleman my initial assessment of this as a two-star book holds up in fact i think i might even bump it lower the really funny thing about book benedict is that he's Constantly complaining that no one really remembers him or knows anything about him he's always being referred to as another

bridgerton or number two and you know what benedict buddy i'm gonna level with you maybe if you actually got yourself a personality people would remember you just a thought so in the prologue of this book we are introduced to sophie beckett who is benedict's love interest and the heroine of our story benedict is The bastard or the illegitimate child of an earl but while the earl doesn't really recognize her as his daughter like in society he does provide her with a lot of comforts he gives her the education that any lady would get he allows

her to live in his home but of course he doesn't really acknowledge her as his daughter which has got to sing and because this is a cinderella retelling of course we need a wicked stepmother and wicked stepsisters the Earl remarries to a woman named ariminta and ariminta has two daughters rosamund and posey rosamund sucks airmentup sucks posey kind of sucks like she doesn't really treat sophie like [ __ ] but then again she doesn't really do anything but at the same time rosamund and erementa are really mean to posey so like i feel kind of

bad for her anyway as cinderella stories go the earl dies he leaves sophie a dowry and tells irementa that You need to provide for sophie until she is i think 20 years old or else you'll get a significantly reduced amount of money per month if you take care of sophie however i'll give you more money erraminta does not divulge the details of the earl's will to sophie and one night during the bridgerton masquerade sophie escaped from the house with the help of the cook the staff the maids at the earl's home they all dress her

up they send her to the richardson Masquerade ball and that is where she meets benedict they dance they flirt they kiss and then sophie discovers that he is a bridgerton brother now ariminta figures out that sophie wore her beautiful shoes to the ball and i can't remember exactly the details but basically they get into like an argument and the scuffle and sophie kind of yells and gets mad and she ends up running away from the house then the book does a timed skip of two years and throughout That two years benedict has been searching for

this lady in silver for him it was love at first sight he thinks about her all the time he's convinced that she is a lady because she dressed like a lady and talked like a lady and you know what's that saying about the duck one night benedict is at a party at some person's house i can't remember his name it starts with a c i believe anyway he's at this dude's house all these men are Getting rowdy sophie is actually a servant at this countryside manor and the young man of the house the heir to

the house he's uh he's a creep let's just let's just put it like that he's creepy he's weird he's always like hitting on sophie and sophie now that the dude's parents are away and he's in charge of the house she's like yikes bad situation this party everyone's drinking i'm out of here so she is trying to sneak away from this Party but then the heir whatever his name is and his friends catch her and listen i already was not a fan of the book so far this this scene right here is is where i start

to have real issues if you guys have been subscribers of this channel for a while then you know that i despise the romance trope i don't even why is this a romance trope oh it's the trope in which the heroine is about to be assaulted Abused some sort of sexual violence is about to be enacted upon her and then the hero like swoops in on his white horse and saves the day i don't like it and the thing that particularly bugs me about this trope is that the focus seems to be more on the hero

the guy than it is the girl it's all about proving you know what a good guy he is i sincerely hope that they cut this scene from the show it does not need to exist Not at all unless they're going to pull another like daphne and burbrick moment in which she like punches the lights out of him i don't want to see it take it back he offers employment to sophie and says come with me and you can work at my mother's house benedict and sophie make it to my cottage so let me try to

explain this benedict's cottage is literally called my cottage does that make sense it was confusing to me every time that it was like used in the book But anyway i digress they get there they arrive benedict falls ill and sophie treats him and helps him you know restore his health or whatever and she sort of says like this is my repayment you saved my life now i saved your life cool fine whatever i don't care oh god i sound so mean i sound so mean and bitter don't i i don't know why i'm so angry

i think it's because i just i love show benedict so much and it I i literally i cannot i cannot do this storyline they spend so much time at this cottage and i like there's literally no point to it there's no point there is nothing i get nothing from this part of the story the book spends way too much time in this cottage storyline i should probably mention here that benedict doesn't know that sophie is the lady in silver one because he thinks that the lady in silver is like an actual lady of the Tawn

and not a random servant sophie has also like become way thinner than she was back then and she also cut her hair and it's a bit darker so he doesn't recognize her i should also mention that during their stay at this cottage benedict he's like attracted to sophie from the beginning he feels really connected to her and he sort of like buckles and asks her To be his mistress i say ask but this man was like on his knees like salivating at the mouth being like please be my mistress i'll give you whatever you want

i'll give you jewels i'll give you a house like just be my mistress then he starts getting really entitled about it and saying that there's no way she could possibly refuse him he could give her this incredible life that she couldn't have any other way Starts talking about how he can't leave her alone to fend for herself and that he's the best option she has just like all this stupid [ __ ] and uh it gets to the point that he's being so rude and arrogant and like just selfish that she decks him so he

falls to the ground and then he grabs her ankle and then like pulls her to the ground julia quinn seems to include a lot of like Physical i guess i don't know if you could call it comedy i think that's what she's going for i would call them altercations between her main couples like in the viton who loved me at one point anthony is like stepping on kate's hand when she's hiding under her desk and he's kicking her and she's like you know punching his foot and like i think she's trying to go for comedy

similarly in this scene with like sophie Punching benedict and then him like dragging her to the floor but is it funny because i don't find it funny maybe maybe my sense of humor is just not my sense of humor but i just don't find it that funny i don't like it the thing is with julia quinn's work and with a lot of historical fiction especially those written in the 2000s i tried to take everything with a grain of salt like i do expect a certain level of Misogyny and just i guess for lack of a

better word other problematic elements to be present in the story and i think i do a pretty good job with like holding those criticisms in one part of my brain while still trying to enjoy the story but i feel like with this book it gets to the point where i just can't do it i think all of us have like a threshold that we can like deal with but that it just gets to the point that You can't like you can't i think another reason it just gets to me so bad with the bridgerton books

it's because i was introduced to this world through the show and i think especially in the second season they did a really great job cutting out those elements that were misogynistic that were uncomfortable the moments in which anthony is aggressive towards kate don't get me wrong the show still has its shortcomings of course i'm talking to you season one episode six But in general it seems like they're making like a concerted effort to include more like modern day sensibilities into a regency era show so when i read the books it's really jarring to see the

main couple like swinging at each other and dragging each other to the ground and benedict just being this like elitist misogynistic [ __ ] and for me when i'm reading a romance book with any sort of sub-genre contemporary historical I'm always going to kind of self-insert and imagine myself in that scenario and how i would react so uh these two going like balls to the wall and swinging at each other and benedict just being the dick that he is it's um it's not appealing to say the least uh it's not really something that i would

fantasize about or daydream about so yeah anyway back to the book so Basically benedict is kind of like sitting with himself and wondering like why the hell is she refusing me and then he sort of puts two and two together and figures out on his own that she's illegitimate and then he gets like weirdly happy about that i'm not exactly sure what his line of thinking is i don't think it's something that you and i will ever be able to comprehend but he basically sees this like ask his way in with her he Basically goes

to her and is playing like this white night roll again being like you don't have to live like this i could make your life so great be my mistress it's like the best thing like i can offer you all these things and like she said no let's start with that and sophie reminds him that she said no and then i don't know if it's him who mentions kids or her but basically sophie says i do not want to have an illegitimate child i know what Kind of life that is like at best you're completely ignored

and seen as this shameful secret at worst you're tossed aside like yesterday's trash and what pray tell do you think benedict's response to this is does he back off and say okay i respect your boundaries that's a that's a hard boundary that's a line that you've drawn i'll back off of course not uh he basically gives her an ultimatum gives her one of two options either be his mistress or he can Move in with his mother and be a servant in her home so sophie becomes a lady's maid to eloise francesca and hyacinth she gets

along with all the british ladies including miss violet who is a godsend i love her anytime she pops up just an icon eventually sophie and benedict do sleep together and it was underwhelming sex i am surprised that she got any enjoyment out of that but you know whatever and immediately after benedict just talks And walks like she's gonna be his mistress like he just assumes that now that they slept together that's what's going to happen and she calls what happens between them a lapse in judgment and leaves [Laughter] yes so later on benedict sees sophie

playing with a bunch of little kids in the bridgerton house and she's like blindfolded so you can only see like the bottom half of her face and that's when He realizes she is was the lady in silver and in classic benedict fashion he lashes out and gets angry at her so benedict pulls her aside he goes absolutely off on her for keeping this a secret and in the middle of the argument in the heat of the moment sophie reveals her true identity as the illegitimate child of the earl of pennwood and sophie is like so

overwhelmed by everything that goes down that she tries to sneak Away from the house in the middle of the night and leave and that is when she runs into her stepmother and arimenta gets her arrested on the charges of thievery the next morning i believe benedict and violet read whistle down they read whistle down they figure out that sophie is under arrest and they go to break her out of jail so benedict and violet show up to the jail where sophie's being held and aramenta's there and then ariminta's younger daughter Posey she says that the

thievery accusation is a lie that her mom just like made that up and she also tells sophie and everyone there that the earl actually did leave sophie a dowry which again was something that ariminta hid from sophie all the way at the beginning of the book and then violet just pulls an absolutely badass move and she tells ariminta that she has to keep the secret of sophie's birth and that she will acknowledge sophie as the earl's ward And that will sort of be what everyone thinks of her as and in this way sophie is now

respectable enough for benedict to marry her benedict in the final few chapters finally comes around and apologizes to sophie for the way that he treated her and how he sort of was always pushing for her to be his mistress and then she apologizes for not being truthful about her identity and then they get married and i don't care i wrote in my notes in capital letters Good god i don't care thank god it's over i really can't think of a single thing about this book that i would keep in the show i actually think that

there is a very easy fix for a lot of the issues in this book and it all has to do with in my mind sophie becoming a governess instead of a servant now throughout the book sophie will constantly mention that she wants to be a governess that she's tried for those positions but can't get Anywhere because she doesn't have the proper references now is the governess still below a bridgerton in the pecking order yes but i think having sophie be a governess grants her a lot more autonomy i just personally like in my head have

made up this headcanon that sophie's going to be a governess for the two younger kids like i am so delusional there is no like literally no evidence that this will ever happen but in my mind in my mind I'm convinced so as i mentioned at the start of this video of all the three bridgerton books that i've read so far i would have to say that romancing mr bridgerton definitely has the most substance the primary conflict in this story and between penelope and colin is the reveal of penelope's identity as lady whistle down and the

ramifications of that revelation i feel like it brought a lot of like understandable angst and Struggle to their relationship the fact that she's kept this a secret the fact that if it got out it could ruin both her and colin the way that it kind of impacts colin because we find out in this book that colin also has a passion for writing and there is this kind of jealousy that he feels towards penelope for her having this purpose this body of work that she can point at and say like this is something that's mine that

i've done that i can show to people i have This legacy whereas colin feels like he doesn't really have that in any aspect of his life colin is viewed by many people as the charmer he like every single other richardson hero is a rake and he's a big flirt everyone knows that colin is down for a good time that he's fun to have around and while colin does enjoy getting his flirt on and being the center of attention he also feels like a lot of people don't see him as anyone with substance they view him

as this Very like shallow fun guy but i'm like totally getting ahead of myself let's go ahead and break down the book beat by beat so we start off and in the prologue we just hear about penelope and the moment when she was 16 years old and fell in love with colin after he fell off of a horse fast forward to when penelope is a spinster at the ripe old age of 28 and colin has just returned from greece and he is 33 years old now after reading This i i feel like i really should

have known that they were going to do pollen because in the show colin just got back from greece that was the first big clue i don't i like completely forgot that that happened in this book but i see what you did there bridget writing room there's a really important moment between colin and penelope that actually Occurs in the third book that kind of like kick-starts their romance and their story colin benedict and anthony are all hanging around outside the richardson house and benedict and anthony are just teasing colin about marriage and about you know their

mom wanting to get him married and you know what about penelope featherington and in a moment of like embarrassment and just wanting his brothers to leave him to Hell alone he bursts out saying i will never marry anyone you know least of all penelope featherington and of course penelope is right there and hears it and i think this moment causes a real shift in penelope's mind of how she like looks at colin and thinks about colin she always really idolized and idealized him and after hearing this she kind of just lets go with that like

fantasy and that childhood crush and i've actually heard nicola cochlin say the same thing about This moment in the show that this conversation causes penelope to take colin off the pedestal that she always puts him on after this incident penn and colin remain pretty good friends whenever they see each other they tease they talk penelope and colin are attending this fall they're chatting and lady danbury comes over and she basically issues a wager of a thousand pounds to whoever can reveal the identity of lady whistle down now this Spreads across the entire ballroom and soon

the whole tawn knows about this wager and everyone i mean everyone's already interested in lady whistle down on who she might be but this thousand pound reward has made everyone all the more interested the next significant thing to happen is when penn comes to visit eloise i believe and she's sitting in some room and sees colin's journal where he writes down basically like a daily journal diary Entries of his experiences at traveling which he does very often so colin catches her and gets really upset and honestly acts like a bit of a brat about it

and then he goes on this whole tangent about how like hard it is for him to be this popular charming guy and how no one likes him for anything like real or no one sees any substance in him as a person and It's just really not a good look to be complaining about how popular you are to a girl who is now a spinster who no one has paid attention to whom her own family doesn't really even see her as a person or as someone worthy of attention and penelope sort of calls him out on

this and he realizes it as well so he apologizes and from then on him and penelope are just spending more and more time together and colin really starts to value penelope as a person and As a friend and then i'm not exactly sure how they get there but eventually penelope sort of asks colin to kiss her she says that she doesn't want to live her entire life having never kissed a man that she's already 28 years old never been kissed and she just wants colin to do her this favor and kiss her and at first

he's hesitating because he realizes after asking him to do this that he actually really wants to kiss her so they kiss and it's cute or Whatever so at the next ball lady whistle down actually publishes an article saying that she is finally retiring and then at that same ball crested calper announces that she is actually lady whistle down so the next day colin goes to see penelope and he sees her getting in a unmarked carriage so he ends up following her deep into the city of london and he sees her get out and go into

this church and he follows her in There as well he sees that penelope takes out an envelope and puts it underneath a pew and then he confronts penelope and he gets like really angry like what the hell are you doing here you should not be in the city unchaperoned this is very dangerous so he grabs the envelope ends up ripping it open reading and sees that it is a column from lady whistle down and she basically is like coming out of retirement to be like cressida It's not lady whistle down she's not me so obviously

colin now knows that pen is lady whistle down and you know i like colin i do but he was getting so like pissy and angry over penn being lady whistle down and he really had no [ __ ] right to be there is like such a fundamental difference between whistle down and the books and whistle down in the show whistle down in the books is basically just like any other like gossipy like mother or woman Of the time all she does is like talk [ __ ] about people's dresses and color choices and speculates about

who's getting married like that's it lady whistle down in the show though like she ruins lives like she's out here destroying reputations and families so i would expect this like intense reaction if it was show calling and what really annoys me is that colin's initial anger towards penelope is mostly about the fact that she kind of like ruined This image she had of her as like this quiet demure sort of like perfect naive girl on the sidelines he's upset that she's not the person he thought she was and that she is capable of keeping a

secret like this and honestly colin honestly colin you need to get over that or you can [ __ ] off but then i don't have to wait too long until colin gets himself back in my good graces he's in the carriage and there's lots of like Heavy petting and making out going on and then they immediately go to featherington house this scene at featherington house is probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire series it is so funny and so like jane austen-esque in this scene mrs featherington reminds me so much of mrs bennett

from pride and prejudice just the absolute ridiculousness and hilarity and the inability to like read the room it's Incredible colin shows up with penelope in the early hours of the morning and the entire like featherington family the whole extended family are in the dining room and the entire time this entire book mrs featherington has been convinced that colin is going to marry her youngest daughter felicity who doesn't exist in the show by the way and so when colin shows up she's like forcing pen to move aside she's making colin felicity sitting next to each Other

she's trying to get felicity to show call in her watercolors and the entire time felicity and colin and pen are just sitting there like you dumb [ __ ] [ __ ] like he's just not interested in felicity and then finally after like all this back and forth and ridiculousness and hilarity colin finally just like stands up and says i want to marry penelope for this this and this reason and if it got me a little bit it got me a Little bit okay colin i i forgive you so then there's a lot of like

honestly just like filler scenes fluff scenes sexy scenes but throughout the entire time colin is just kind of questioning whether or not he really loves penelope because he has always thought that love is like this thing that just like comes at you like similarly to benedict and sophie he thinks he's just going to see a woman at a ball one night and fall instantly in Love so he is just kind of questioning is it possible for him to be in love with someone when it comes on so slowly so he's just kind of questioning his

feelings so violet hosts a engagement party for colin and penelope and during that engagement party the final lady whistle down comes out and is that same column that colin found in the church in which lady whistled down says that cressida is lying so that lady whistled down column gets distributed at their Engagement party and colin is pissed he like grips penelope's arm like super hard and like drags her out of the room and then starts like going off on her which i didn't like not in the slightest loosen your grip sir calm down sir so

earlier in the book pen and colin had come to this agreement that she was going to let go of whistle down and pen explains that she just simply could not let cressida take The credit for her life's work and it's not even that it's cressida like she doesn't want anyone to have the credit for something that she has made on her own that she's worked so hard for like lady whistle down is hers and it's in that moment that colin realizes that a lot of his anger comes from jealousy pen she has this legacy she

can look to lady whistle down point to lady whistle down and feel accomplished that she's done something she has something that Represents her and all of her efforts and colin doesn't have anything like that however he doesn't explain this to her so instead penelope just thinks that he's ashamed of her work as lady whistle down but eventually colin comes around and he has penn read all of his journals which he's never showed to anybody but he lets her read them and says that he really values her opinion and he wants to know if she thinks

that they're any good and he does the mature Thing finally and instead of being a little baby about it he sits her down and tells her look i had these like irrational feelings of jealousy i'm sorry i value opinion more than anyone else's and i'm really proud of you and the work you did as lady whistled down it's an incredible accomplishment julia quinn always does this she always has her heroes apologize like right at the very end of the book i think i'm gonna let Colin have this one because i can understand those feelings of

jealousy but with benedict it simply didn't work but colin colin i'mma let you get away with it so then we have our final conflict that wraps up the book and this occurs when cressida comes to pen and basically reveals that she knows that she is lady whistle down and she blackmails penelope and says that i will reveal your identity unless you give me ten thousand pounds So she tells colin about this and then colin basically sets up the scheme with all of his family wherein at simon and daphne's like final ball of the season he

brings penelope up in front of the entire john and announces that she is lady whistle down he declares his love for her he declares how proud he is of her and then the whole room is kind of quiet and then i'm sorry it's just so like trite what happens next basically there's like a Single clap from the audience and it's lady danbury clapping and then anthony joins in and then simon joins in and then then the whole room is like clapping and cheering for them which come on now really it's very convenient it's very trite

like there's oh there's no way that is going down like this in the show the way that she has ruined lives the things that she said no way no way in fact i'm actually of the opinion that i don't think they're going to Reveal penelope's identity as lady whistle down to the general taun i think that in the show colin will find out and maybe the rest of the bridgerton family but i think they're going to try to like keep it within the family because i i really don't think that penelope or anyone related to

her would be able to survive the backlash of the taunt i actually think they might do this thing where they reveal her identity and in an attempt to like save Her and protect her colin proposes marriage i don't know but i know for sure that they're not gonna do this kind of like grand announcement at a ball or i'm even more sure that no one's gonna be [ __ ] clapping for her so i was a lot calmer while talking about this book compared to an offer from a gentleman because while colin was like annoying

with his jealousy and the way he lashed out i still Could understand where he was coming from and empathize with those feelings i think even though i'm a really big fan of caden anthony i can make the objective statement that colin and penelope's story is definitely the best written story and the best structured and plotted novel i really don't know where to begin let me start off by saying that for those of you who thought i was A bit too heated a bit too angry whilst talking about an offer from a gentleman if you thought

that i was a little bit too hard on book benedict you are not going to want to know what i think about this book and what i particularly think about one sir philip crane i say his name and i just my blood boils as i've mentioned previously in this video whilst reading historical fiction i have a understanding that the men in These books are going to act in certain ways that no longer fit are certain modern sensibilities essentially what i'm saying here is that i know i'm going to have to deal with a certain level

of misogyny a certain level of entitlement that these men have i have a threshold that i can tolerate benedict exceeded that threshold he went above and beyond philip crane however he crossed the line so many times he can't even see the line That is how far gone he is at the beginning of this video i provided a list of triggers but i want to go ahead and give another trigger warning here for discussions and stigma around mental health particularly depression and postpartum depression there's fairly detailed descriptions of a person unaliving themselves there's also going to

be a lot of discussions regarding child neglect and child abuse particularly physical abuse so if those Are topics that you don't want to talk about you don't really want to engage with right now i totally understand take care of yourself that always comes first just skip this section or exit out of the video that's totally fine as well anyway this book opens up and we are in the point of view of one philip crane unfortunately and in this prologue he describes his marriage to marina now marina in the books and marina in the show are

extremely different in that Marina in the show actually has a personality and a story arc and marina in the books exists simply to die i know that sounds harsh but it's true in the prologue philip goes on and on about how sad desolate and isolated marina is she does not leave her bedroom she does not interact with her children philip constantly makes marina's depression undiagnosed depression i should mention of course in This time mental health was not even really considered it was not a thing the idea of mental illness so there's no diagnosis for what

marina is going through but i think it's safe to say that she is depressed pretty severely depressed philip continues to blame marina for her own mental illness he vilifies her throughout the entire book we'll get to that when it comes but just know that it never gets better he never sees Marina as anything beyond a burden and that is why we have an issue and it's just one of the many issues i have with this man anyway long story short and i hate to say this so bluntly but this is literally how it plays out

marina ends up walking into a lake and attempting to drown herself philip sees her he pulls her out of the lake just in time marina ends up passing away a few days later due to complications and an illness from being in the lake a Freezing lake for so long and this is when we jump ahead about a year and meet up with eloise eloise richardson i believe has had the most dramatic character shift and change between the books to the show really the only thing that show eloise retains from her book inspiration is her inability

to stop talking once eloise gets started she doesn't stop but that is really the only similarity between the two of them eloise in the Book wants to get married wants to have children whereas eloise in the show is uninterested in marriage and even more uninterested in having a child so we meet eloise in the book and she has been corresponding with phillip via letters ever since marina's death now marina is actually eloise's cousin in the books and so she writes and gives her condolences and from there her and philip exchange letters like i said for

a year after marina's passing until Finally one day philip writes her letter and very bluntly says that he wishes to marry her and she would like her to come visit his house and for them to see if they suit so eloise after not responding to that letter for well over a month decides randomly one night that she is going to go to phillips house in the country she sneaks away from colin and penelope's engagement party if you remember from the end of the last book and she gets a carriage and makes her Way to phillips

house philip is pretty shocked that she just randomly showed up because she never responded to his letter and he's a bit of a dick to her if i'm being honest here i mean this is really just the start and the kids oliver and amanda they have really grown up with no discipline no regulation no love or attention from any sort of parental figure especially not their father so they're pretty wild they're Also eight years old and eight-year-olds in general tend to be pretty wild but when you add on the childhood neglect then yeah they're pretty

wild and untamed and they do not like eloise so eloise ends up staying at phillips home and one day eloise is walking through the house and she ends up tripping over a string that oliver and amanda set up they pranked her basically and she falls pretty hard on her face and it leaves a pretty hefty bruise and she's also Injured and sore in other places philip goes off on the kids in front of eloise and then takes them out of the room to what i assume he did is he spanked them and then he brought

them back into the room and made them apologize to eloise spanking or any other form of corporal punishment should never be used in a child yeah sure this was another time period or whatever but it will never sit right with me and the way that like spanking and other Forms of like corporal punishment are talked about so flippantly in this book just boils my blood like yes i know that that was how children were treated but like i don't want to [ __ ] see it i do not like the way that it's so casually

mentioned in this book soon after this incident we find out that philip's own father was extremely physically abusive towards him like he would take out a whip and whip phillip on his back like philip has a multitude Of scars from this kind of treatment and philip reveals to the reader that he is afraid of becoming like his father and in fact there was an incident in which the kids his kids oliver and amanda pranked one of their governesses and he was so upset with them that he went to go get a whip and then was

so disgusted with himself as he should have been that he locked himself in the greenhouse for like an entire day the highlight of this book Comes next in which all the bridgeton brothers show up and beat the [ __ ] out of philip and frankly this scene was not long enough eloise has been staying at phillips house like unchaperoned and they're obviously unmarried so this is like a huge stain on your reputation anthony and benedict are like the primary like punch throwers which i appreciate i really wish they could have gotten in like another few

licks but the Opposite of what i wanted happens and they end up like bonding with philip and how they bond is by talking about a tavern lady bar ladies like giant boobs i was reading this book and i just kept thinking it could not get any worse and then it just did anyway anthony says that the two of them have to get married and so they do and i hate it i hated it i hate everything about this book the thing About philip is that he cares more about his children's appearance he cares about the

way that they're presented to the world he cares about whether or not they behave especially in company that's what he cares about he doesn't actually care about his kids he doesn't even [ __ ] like them he chooses every day to lock himself up in his greenhouse that's the other thing oh i'm about to get really mad i'm about to get really really [ __ ] mad so these two get married Right and phillip in his puny little pre-sized brain he thinks that this is the perfect marriage and why does he think that because during

the day he can lock himself in his greenhouse and eloise can deal with his kids he doesn't even have to know that they exist and he doesn't even have to interact with his wife he can just be in his greenhouse on his own neglecting everyone in his family and then at night he could [ __ ] eloise as much as he wants And that is what he deems a perfect marriage in case i didn't mention it yet [ __ ] philip crane [ __ ] philip crane i feel empathy for the child the child that

philip was who went through that emotional neglect and that physical torture but i feel no sympathy for the grown man who despite saying that he doesn't want to continue these cycles of abuse and neglect is doing exactly that and who Only sees eloise his wife as basically just a glorified babysitter for his kids that he gets to [ __ ] whenever he wants anyway then comes the absolute worst scene in the entire book i know i know you thought it was already bad it's about to get worser so eloise approaches philip well he's in his

precious little greenhouse and she tells him that she does not like the way that nurse edwards conducts herself around the kids she does not Like the way that she treats the kids and the way that she like i think she sees her like wrap them on the knuckles or hit them on the knuckles or something and she doesn't like it so she voices her concerns to phillip and this man tells her that the kids probably did something to deserve it and that if she's so concerned maybe she should look into it Oh my god you

cannot be serious you cannot be serious and then oh my god and then it just gets so bad philip then proceeds immediately after to kiss eloise and start feeling her up and he's trying to get something going after she told him that she's worried about the safety and treatment of his children and then when eloise stops him and is like this is not the right time For this and why is our marriage only ever about sex he then gets mad at her imagine that imagine that and he walks off like the little pathetic baby he

is because eloise ruined i'm pretty sure he uses the word ruined his idea of their marriage as like the perfect union then he shows up at the nursery and actually sees nurse edwards hitting the kids on the back With a book and he gets like super angry and throws her out and then finally by the grace of god he decides to be a good dad and he hugs the kids and like whatever i don't care i don't care literally screw you man screw you so then philip goes to eloise and tries to explain himself this

is like the quintessential bridgerton julia quinn like final hail mary where the hero will go and like apologize To the heroine after being like a complete just unapologetic [ __ ] the entire time and then there's like finally this like one apology at the very end except philip doesn't know how to apologize philip doesn't know how to do anything other than blame other people for his shortcomings he then goes on a tirade about how much marina sucks so basically he tells eloise our marriage is perfect because compared to what i had with Marina it has

to be perfect and he basically i don't care there's other things that happens in the book what happens at the end i don't know there's just like a scene where oliver amanda eloise and philip go out on like a day like a family day um i don't care you've done irreparable damage to those children there is no way that they can adapt anything in this book for the show not a single thing From this book is going to work not a single thing from this book do i even want to see on screen none of

it go back to the drawing board start over anyway i don't even have to read the rest of the books in this series to know that this is undoubtedly the worst like the worst it's not even a contest suddenly book benedict is looking like a gosh darn dreamboat so full transparency you guys i am Currently getting over a cold so if i sound kind of off or if my vibe is not what it usually is that's probably why when he was wicked michael sterling and francesca bergerton's love story i can confidently say that this is

the best bridgeton book and the best bridgerton book romance this book just gave me everything it gave me angst it gave me unrequited love it gave me forbidden love it gave me like friends to strangers to friends to Lovers it gave me the pinnacle of historical fiction smut like i do not think it can ever get better than this i was quite literally on the edge of my seat i couldn't contain myself what i love about francesca and what you will understand as i tell you her story is that she is not one of julia

quinn's typical heroines in that she is not inexperienced when her and michael sleep together for the first time that is the Only time in this entire series i'm pretty sure that we get that and not only does francesca know what she wants she tells michael what she wants oh boy oh boy and then and then i'm getting so ahead of myself but i need i need to explain myself i need you guys to know just how exquisite and immaculate the smut is in this book michael sterling has the dirtiest mouth of any bridgeton man he

is walking in the footsteps of show Anthony bridgerton show anthony bridger10 he took that baton that jonathan bailey was reaching out he took it and he [ __ ] ran with it we'll get to that because i'm skipping ahead let me take it back and let me take it back and let's start from the beginning shall we so the book opens up and we meet our hero michael sterling who miss julia we need to just hang it up at this point okay because she describes this man as the biggest rake london has Ever seen but

apparently so was anthony and benedict and colin so how are they all the biggest rick in london or that london has ever seen like it's just it's it's logistically not possible i actually wrote right here like after reading the first chapter i wrote i can already feel this book is going to be my favorite michael sterling supremacy a completely factual statement so we Start off the story and we're kind of like dropped into the middle of it all michael is pining after francesca who happens to be the wife of michael's very close first cousin john

now john is an earl of their scottish estate called kill martin they also have a house called kill martin house in london he's been married to francesca for about two years now and michael has always been in love with francesca but he's kept that to himself obviously because it's just Like a scandalous thing and because he loves john like a brother but michael francesca and john are a kind of duo francesca really considers michael to be her friend as well as john's cousin and basically brother and this dynamic this dynamic is so [ __ ]

exquisite i love a love triangle when everyone has like a different kind of relationship and you have loyalty between all three of the characters like it's just so good anyway so there's like a bit of fluff and you Kind of get like involved in their lives and whatever you see their dynamic as a trio but very quickly john gets sick and he just dies in his sleep it's very sudden very shocking to everybody and there's kind of this question of who is going to inherit the estate because it will either go to michael or francesca

is pregnant and bears a son then the house will go to him and francesca actually is pregnant unfortunately though she miscarries and loses the Child and so the kill martin name and the earldom goes to michael and michael after the events of losing his cousin he just is kind of like rejecting the earldom and rejecting francesca he doesn't really want to be around her because every time he sees her he still like loves her and desires her and that just makes him feel even worse so he's avoiding her altogether now francesca comes to him after

having her miscarriage and she actually called on Michael to come see her but he refused to so she goes to him and at some point during their conversation she mentions that michael would have likely been a father figure to the baby and this just kind of sends michael into a tailspin he completely snaps he runs away to india for a couple of years and francesca is basically left in charge of the earldom and all the different estates in the kill martin name now here's the thing even though i love this book and i do Love

it to death it of course has uh its downsides the first one being this whole like india storyline it's it's just it reeks of colonialism and orientalism i won't go into specifics but just know that throughout the book michael is constantly being referred to as like having a scandalous tan from being in india for so long and then he also tells like a lot of stories about how he like had a sword fight with this Like exotic indian princess and then they slept together afterwards like it's it just reeks man it [ __ ] stinks

but the thing is i've come to realize about julia quinn novels is that even when i'm really enjoying them she will always find a way to kind of like bring down the mood and ruin the vibe either by throwing in this like blatant colonialism and this like fetish federization exotification i'm not sure exactly what the word is of India and the people who live there or most likely what she does because she always does this she will just like sprinkle in a little bit of like casual misogyny it happens all the time and it's very

unnecessary i'll point it out when it comes but just know that it happens a lot and it just ruins the vibe man like it really sucks anyway michael eventually returns to london about four years later i believe so michael returns to kill martin house in london and Francesca also happens to be there at the same time for the london season because she plans on finding herself a new husband not because she necessarily wants a new person to love or companion but because she wants a child so very badly fran and michael run into each other

again there's lots of awkwardness and weirdness between the two but the important thing is that fran eventually realizes that michael actually has malaria he asks her not to tell anybody And she gives him that promise and eventually francesca michael's mother and uh john's mother so michael's aunt all eventually come to kill martin house to live so francesca and michael are both on the marriage mart this season and it's actually really funny because michael is like the biggest catch of the season and so a lot of women will come to francesca and will sort of ask

like oh where's michael is michael coming and She gets like really annoyed about it we know it's jealousy but she doesn't realize it yet which ugh just another exquisite trope but francesca is no slouch herself and she has actually become the most eligible woman on the market and one day after a pretty big ball francesca wakes up and there are just piles upon piles of flowers in the sitting room there for her and of course michael then gets jealous i love a healthy amount of jealousy like these Little sprinkles of jealousy just chef's kiss amazing

so at one ball in particular michael is looking around for francesca of course as he always does and he sees that she's not there so he steps outside and he actually hears her laughing in the garden and he hears like a man whispering and at first he gets like really jealous and upset he's about to go but then he hears francesca start like saying no and stop and so he comes and He sees i honestly forget the dude's name but he sees someone trying to like kiss her and being kind of forceful with her and

he gets in the way so francesca ends up going home earlier than michael and then when michael returns home from the ball she approaches him and confronts him she actually barges into her room and asks him why he was so upset with her over what happened she also goes on to press him and says like you've been so distant from me ever Since we lost jon like what the hell is going on and this is the moment where they share their first kiss and it was so good oh my god there was like all this

tension michael was like shouldn't be in my room and he was just like so overcome and they were like in the heat of the moment and she was like why are you so upset with me like what is it what have i done oh my god and he like can't tell her that like you haven't done anything it's Just that i love you but i know that i can't have you like oh my god you guys i was i was living francesca is so freaked out by the kiss and how much she enjoyed it that

she runs off to scotland now i neglected to mention this before but colin actually plays a pretty pivotal role in francesca and michael's story previously to this moment she had actually approached michael and said you know why don't you just like marry my sister why don't you Just marry francesca it'll work out for both of you and you obviously love her so just do it and colin's saying that sort of like plants the idea in michael's brain that was a little while before in the novel but now we're like back to the present francesca has

run away to scotland after the kiss and michael is obviously pretty bummed about that and colin runs into him at the like men's club and he lets michael know that he has actually just proposed to Penelope featherington so you see like the timelines are all kind of converging so this whole thing with michael and francesca is happening at the same time as romancing mr bridgerton anyway so colin says basically he's giving michael an excuse to go to scotland and relay the news that colin and penelope are engaged and michael takes that opportunity and he goes

to scotland to see francesca so michael shows up to kill martin and he at first Proposes marriage in like a very practical sense like you're already the countess of this whole place and i'm the earl so why don't we just like get married very practical but then then then he asks her don't you want another kiss oh my god you guys this man has me like twirling my hair kicking my feet it's not it's embarrassing unfortunately mr lea quinn low-key ruins the moment by having Michael like in his mind when he's thinking about seducing francesca

and kissing her he's like oh i'm gonna make it so that she can't marry anybody else i'm gonna like ruin her for all other men like in a sense the way that he's thinking about it he's thinking of like trapping her into marriage which like i here's the thing i try really hard to like compartmentalize when i read these books like every time that some like Casual misogyny and like weirdo behavior happens i try to just like okay i'm just gonna like put that in a box sometimes the box overflows phil crane i don't even

know why i coughed i'll say it boldly philip crane but with instances like this i try to just like okay we're just gonna like ignore that we're gonna look away besides all that like weirdness that miss quinn had to throw in there for some reason this scene is super hot like You have no idea basically michael okay so like when michael and francesca were friends a lot of times because he was this like notorious rake she would ask michael to tell me about like your conquests or the women that you slept with and so michael

now whispers in her ear how she was always so curious and always wanting to know like when he did something wicked i'm a fan of dirty talk but a lot of times it's like not really done well or it Comes off a bit cringy michael sterling michael sterling he does it and he does it well he does it with class and decorum and a little bit of sluttiness and that's what we love so long story short they sleep together and afterward francesca is just like super uncomfortable around michael and just really feels bad about the

whole thing so francesca basically tells michael i am only going to marry you if i end up pregnant and then michael sort of Responds by saying that he only really slept with her to trap her into marriage which like michael please stop being a weirdo i'm trying really hard to root for you why does miss julia quinn do this moving on to the next smut scene see i thought the first scene of them together was hot i was not prepared i was not physically mentally or emotionally prepared for what happened next basically they're Having sex

and michael sort of tells her to do something and francesca says no she tells him and i quote to beg her i dropped my damn phone she says beg me good god she's just giving him orders lay down on the bed michael don't touch me michael i oh it's living red free in my brain right now i need them to transcribe this scene Word for word into the tv show okay i need every single line in the show so francesca and michael continue to sleep with each other until francesca eventually has her period which she's

actually like really broken up about and she didn't expect to be so after she gets her period she tells michael that they can't continue this like sleeping together this relationship anymore so francesca goes to michael and says that i just can't keep doing this anymore i Never thought that i would feel passion for another man like this and in michael's mind he interprets her saying that as like her using him for sex because he's like a rake and he has a reputation so they start going back and forth a little bit and arguing over like

the situation that they're in and then eventually michael reveals that he is in love with her and has been in love with her ever since the beginning when they first met when she was married to john And that he just he can't only be with her if all she wants is to sleep together he can't be with her in half measures so francesca eventually comes around and agrees to marry him and then michael goes and has this whole little moment like kissing her and being like you're mine and i'm pretty sure he says something along

the lines of like i'll like tie you to this bed and won't let you go until you're pregnant which Michael sweetie why did you have to ruin this with breeding kink we're gonna put that moment in the box and just forget about it so eventually francesca gets a letter from her mom announcing that colin and penelope are engaged and to be married in like the next few days and francesca is kind of pissed because she's like what the hell why am i always the last to know when things are going on in my family also

the letter tells her that Eloise is also getting married and so fran is just feeling really left out so then michael suggests that they have like a quickie little wedding and francesca agrees and so now they're married however francesca is not able to really say that she loves michael he admits it freely all the time but she can only really say that she's glad that he's her husband like that's as much affection as she can admit to so michael's malaria ends up resurging Sooner than they thought it would but actually it turns out it wasn't

malaria at all it was like some other illness however at the time francesca did believe that this was his malaria and she started to fear that he was going to die so one day she says to michael i gotta go and she actually goes to john's grave and there she admits to him that she loves michael she loves him in a different way and then she does john throughout the book francesca will talk About how her and john were just so compatible from the beginning they could finish each other's sentences they always knew what the

other was thinking but with michael she feels passion and devotion and this almost like soulmate type of thing so it's like different kinds of love but she admits this to john and she even says that she thinks that jon would actually approve of them being together and michael unbeknownst to her is Standing behind her overhears the whole thing and they sort of reconcile come together admit that they're in love and yeah that's that's basically it happy ending you guys i love this book it gave me all of like the angst that i want from a

ship but it did it in such a way that like i felt bad for everyone involved the denial of feelings from both sides was like so exquisite and i love how it almost like flipped on its head like in the beginning it was Michael like denying denying denying and then towards the end of the book it was francesca doing like the denial sort of thing the smut was like a1 a plus best of the entire series i know that they recently recasted francesca which while i'm sad for the actress who left i know that she's

going on to do like a main role in another netflix project so good for her and i'm actually really excited because i think what they're going to do is have Francesca debut in the next season and i think she might meet john and get married and we may see john and michael and sort of be introduced to them so that way once her season really gets going and we have michael as a love interest people already like know about her and know about that relationship i'm like 85 90 sure that that's what they're going to

be doing it makes perfect sense especially because colin and penelope and francesca and john and michael's Story like overlap so much i was also speaking to a friend of mine maryam whom if you haven't checked her out go ahead and check her out i'll have her channel floating somewhere here but we were both talking while she was reading this book and the both of us sort of like had canon michael and john as southeast asian i just see it in my head so vividly so if we don't get southeast asia in my goal i may

be a little bit upset totally Irrationally upset but still upset it's so effing hot i don't know why i said effing i curse on my channel it's [ __ ] hot okay so let's go ahead and break this book down as quickly as possible so i can get out of this dress and take off this makeup that is already binding itself to my face now it's in his kiss i think is the bridgeton book that surprised me the most because it almost feels like it's not a richard Book and by that i mean that hyacinth

is such a different heroine from all the ones that we've seen previously hyacinth is essentially a mini lady danbury she truly does not care what anyone thinks of her she says whatever is on her mind and frankly doesn't care whose feelings she hurts especially if she believes in what she says and hyacinth always believes what she says i think all the bridgeton heroines have Some level of like spunk and wit but hyacinth is truly like in a league of her own and it's honestly really refreshing i think she is without a doubt one of my

top three bridgertons if not my favorite book bridgerton ever and the way she gets to know her love interest the way that they spend time together and get to know one another it's not through balls or society functions or teas like we would usually see Instead they go on these like mini heists and are trying to solve this like treasure hunt it is so fun like when i think about this book i just think about how much damn fun i had reading it let's jump in to the actual summary okay so the book opens up

and we meet our hero gareth sinclair my lisp really does not like his name so he is the second son of a baron and basically a huge disappointment to his father and gareth kind of I wouldn't say he enjoys playing up that role but he definitely leans into it and gets up to a whole bunch of debauchery while away at school so gareth garr gareth's father i'm telling you guys this is not going to be pretty so his father calls him into a study and basically tells him that he is going to be married to

a woman who will hopefully help their family and bring them some money and that is how gareth will be useful to his father now gareth is Obviously not a fan of this situation and him and his father go back and forth until his father finally just like blurts out that gareth is actually illegitimate he is not really his son and that apparently gareth's mother had him with another man while the baron was away so after we find out that info we skip about 10 years later and gareth's older brother has actually died and so now

the baronetage is going to be Passed down to gareth instead and gareth is almost 100 certain that his father is not going to allow this to happen he is going to in some way reveal the truth of gareth's birth he doesn't know when this is going to happen but he's sure that his father is going to do something to make sure that gareth does not become the next baron so then we discover that gareth is actually lady danbury's grandson she is his maternal grandmother and she loves gareth more than any of Her other grandkids she

tells him as much and it was actually lady danbury who invited gareth to live with her after his father told him all that info gareth kind of ran away slash he was kicked out of the home so he's been living with her and she's really the only family member in his life that is left after his brother died who he feels close to and feels loved by gareth has just been gifted a diary written by his paternal grandmother isabella it is Written entirely in italian and this was something that his brother left to him after

he passed so he really wants to get it translated and that is where hyacinth comes in now hyacinth actually comes every week to lady danbury's house to read to her on tuesdays and this is how her and gareth kind of connect and get to know each other she reveals that she knows a fair bit of italian and that is how he gets her to agree to translate the diary the next important scene to Come up is between violet and hyacinth and i noticed that this is actually a reoccurring thing in every single projection book where

violet will sit with her child and talk to them about love about their strengths and weaknesses and i personally really like that i feel like violet of course has a really good insight into who they are as people but more importantly she has an insight into their failings and what might stop them from finding happiness And true love and violet points out to hyacinth and to the reader that hyacinth tends to push people away when they challenge her or even match her wit and her you know conversational abilities is that even a word whatever now

gareth and hyacinth are at a ball they're dancing together and hyacinth notices that lord saint claire aka gareth's father except not really like his biological father anyway he shows up and hyacinth knows that they Have a strange relationship everybody knows this so she tries to like distract gareth but gareth ends up running into his father anyway and they get into an argument lord sinclair basically just lays into gareth he's degrading him he's berating him and he keeps questioning like oh who who is your father i wonder who your father could be and gareth in his

saying that sort of realizes that his father also really wants to know like who his wife slept with and then Finally gareth's dad tells him you know i see you hanging around with that bridgerton girl there's no way she's going to want you now this really angers gareth if there's anything you should know about him it's that his father can really set him off like a lot of the things that he does is in retaliation to his father and that becomes like a big problem later on so hyacinth finds gareth after this conversation with his

dad and they end up kissing and like i Mentioned gareth kind of does everything because of his father at least in some part and when he kisses highest synth he kind of in a way is doing it to get back at his dad being like oh yeah like i could have her or you know she wants me which um let's just say it's icky hyacinth runs away after their kiss and while both of them immensely enjoy themselves they don't really say that to each other and they kind of Think that the other person didn't enjoy

it even though we all know that they really did now this entire time hyacinth has been at work translating the diary it takes her some time to do it because she's not totally fluent in italian but she does figure out that his grandmother isabella hid diamonds in the sinclair house and this is where the heist and the treasure hunt really begins because at night both of them sneak in to the saint claire house they locate a cabinet And behind that cabinet they find a secret compartment and in that compartment they then find another letter aka

another clue so a little while after gareth comes to the bridger gen house and he meets with hyacinth and he also runs in to violet and gregory violet who is trying to push gareth and hyacinth together and gregory who is just you know kneeling hyacinth and constantly teasing her gareth and hyacinth then sneak away and they go on A promenade where hi synth tells him that she translated the clue and the next clue that they're looking for or potentially where they will find the diamonds is in the sinclair library she then starts to complain about

her family and how much her brother teases her and how all the bridgetons are sort of always involved in each other's business and gareth suddenly gets very angry and sort of tells her you know you need to appreciate your family you don't know What i would give to just have one more person in my life who i cared about and who cared about me and it's when gareth is saying all these things that hyacinth realizes that she loves him it's just like unbelievably sweet how like immediately it hits her and how it's gareth sort of

talking about like his desire for a family that makes her realize that she loves him like it's just so cute you guys i love hyacinth it is unfortunately at that moment where Hyacinth and gareth run into lord saint claire again and lord sinclair and gareth have this conversation and this confrontation in front of hyacinth where you as the reader and them too can obviously tell that they're talking about gareth and his you know illegitimate birth and dubious parentage but hyacinth is just kind of left in the dark like she knows something is going on that

they're sort of talking in circles and talking around Some secret but she doesn't know what it is and hi synth being hyacinth that really bugs her hyacinth likes to know everybody's business she's a busybody she's nosy and she's perfectly aware of that fact and happy with that fact and i just i love her like if there's one thing that you need to know it's that i [ __ ] love high sense virgin so gareth and hyacinth returned to her home and hyacinth sort of tells him that she always wondered what it would have been Like

to have a father but seeing now what gary's father is like she thinks it's probably better not to have one at all than to have one like gareth's father which sounds really harsh but the way she says it and the way gareth takes it he like appreciates what she says and hyacinth then starts to talk about how she knows that she's not an easy person to love and this is when gareth has his own moment of realization when hyacinth is talking he Thinks actually you know what i think it would be really easy to fall

in love with high seth richardson it's so cute you guys they're so cute i just oh my god if michael sterling and francesca richardson got me hot under the collar then these two just make me want to like squeeze something till it pops because they're so cute gareth is like totally overcome with his feelings for hyacinth he kisses her but then There is still this part of him that is thinking like oh if i like marry high synth then that'll be like a one-up on my dad and like hey look i married the girl that

you said would never want me which um once again concerning gareth then goes to anthony and asks for heisen's hand and marriage and anthony very readily and very speedily agrees he was convinced that there would be nobody who could ever match hyacinth and her wit so he's very happy to let them get Married but anthony does question the rift between gareth and his father and this kind of sends alarm bells off in gareth's head gareth becomes convinced that if he wants to marry hyacinth then he has to like seduce her and like ruin her uh

in order to make sure that they have to get married and once again this is it this is the moment where gareth slips into that you know casual misogyny That we see from all of julia quinn's heroes it's not great gareth sneaks into her room at night they have sex and then they immediately go to the saint claire house to the library and they find the book that isabella mentioned and they find another clue another letter inside that book but while they are on their way running from the house they then run into who else

lord sinclair so during this particular argument lord saint claire tells gareth Everything that you do is because of me every single decision that you've ever made you do it to get back at me to get a reaction out of me the reason that you're marrying hyacinth is because of me and you know the man's not wrong gareth eventually like weasels his way out of this conversation with his dad and hyacinth had been hiding behind like This like wall or street corner and when he goes back he sees that she's not there so he starts like

running towards the bridgerton house and they both get there at the same time but high synth like slams the door in his face but since gareth already like climbed into her bedroom before he knows how to do it so he just does it again and she tells him what all of us know to be true which is that his father is right and that the primary reason that he wants to marry Hyacinth is because of his father like don't get me wrong he does like hyacinth but at this point his hatred for his father is

clouding his feelings for hyacinth and the love that he's starting to feel for her and gareth upon realizing that he could lose hyacinth because of the grudge he has towards his father sort of decides to let that go and he confesses his love to hyacinth and also confesses the truth about his birth and hyacinth Just takes it in stride like i knew she would she's a badass she's great she basically laughs it off and was expecting like so much worse so then there's another moment where gareth slips back into not even casual misogyny but just

outright misogyny when hyacinth finds him at the saint claire house he was going to break in to try to find the diamonds without her and he just gets like royally pissed that she's out late at night now that they're like Officially engaged and going to get married he basically tells her like once we're married you can never go outside without my permission and if i have to i'll like tie you to the bed to make sure that you can't go anywhere i feel like at this point whenever these moments happen i'm almost like desensitized to

it like i'm numb to this [ __ ] now and i'm also almost 100 sure that the show is not going to include any of these lines or these moments so I think that is why i'm able to sort of like brush them off because i'm like okay well once i get the show version of this couple i'm sure i'm gonna love them like 100 and like them so much more anyway so hyacinth actually figures out from isabella's diary who gareth's real father is and it turns out that his biological father is actually his uncle

so lord saint claire's younger brother and when hyacinth tells gareth the truth he Sort of has this realization that his parentage honestly doesn't even matter it just doesn't have any like sway over him anymore he doesn't care what he cares about is hyacinth and the family that he's going to make with her the two of them pair up one last time to go to saint claire house and look for the diamonds but they don't end up finding them and one last time when they're on their way out they run into lord sinclair and gareth sort

of thinks to Himself like if this was any other time he would have done anything to like piss off his father to say anything to rile him up but now he just like truly doesn't care like so gareth actually tells lord sinclair the truth about his birth and that his biological father is lord saint claire's brother and lord said claire just like is she just shuts up like he doesn't sing anything he basically turns to gareth and hyacinth and says you're Gonna need her dowry and then he goes into the house and shuts the door

and that's the last we see of him gareth then does this really sweet thing where he gets down on one knee and he makes his whole speech about all the reasons why he wants to marry hyacinth and why he loves her it's very different from his first proposal when the main motivation was to just like piss off his dad and prove to his dad that he could marry hyacinth It's really really sweet i'm not gonna lie when i first read this ending i was kind of like angry because i was like you spent this whole

book trying to find these diamonds and you didn't [ __ ] find them but thankfully there is a cute little epilogue where it's actually their daughter who finds the diamonds but she kind of like puts them back where she finds them so that maybe one day hyacinth will eventually find them because she has been looking for them Like ever since all right one final time let's do this shall we miss julia quinn really pulled out all the stops with this final book i feel like she took all the leftover ideas that she had all the

leftover tropes that she hadn't used in her books and then decided to just like jam them into this one final novel and unfortunately The execution was not great when i was first starting out with this book i was really enjoying myself i was having a good time i liked that gregory was not so similar to the previous richerton brothers in that he is not like a rake like all the rest of them he actually really believes in love and is actively searching for like his one true love and i thought that was like really refreshing

and really cute and i was digging the trajectory of his and lucy's Love story and then the final like 30 to 40 of this novel happens and it just turned into a full-on cw style melodrama it was insane so in the first chapter of this book we are dropped right into the middle of the action gregory has stormed a wedding in the middle of the ceremony he's professing his love to the bride asking her to run away with him and right before she's meant to give her answer the chapter Cuts off and we go back

about two or three months so gregory is now in anthony's study i believe at aubrey hall he's talking to him and anthony is basically telling gregory you need to find some kind of a life path usually second third and especially fourth sons they don't really have a lot of money they either go into the army or the clergy but none of that really appeals to gregory so anthony is basically Telling him you gotta choose some kind of life path or you have to get married like just you gotta do something so after having this talk

with gregory anthony sends him out into what i believe is like this week-long stay at aubrey hall that anthony and kate are hosting and when gregory goes out he sees the back of this blonde woman's head and he just falls instantly in love without even really seeing this woman or her face and he you know shoots across The room to her and introduces himself so the woman he's instantly fallen in love with without even really seeing her face her name is hermione watson and she is actually the best friend of our heroine lucinda abernathy now

lucinda has always sort of played second fiddle to hermione so lucy is not at all surprised when gregory comes up and is obviously infatuated with hermione she has seen this happen time and time again now gregory actually ends up asking lucy To dance because hermione can't dance like she's bad at it so she always tries to like pawn off the guys who ask her to dance to lucy instead and lucy is like okay fine you know these guys if they want to get to hermione they try to impress me whatever i'll dance with him and

she enjoys dancing so she does it lucy cuts to the chase while her and gregory are dancing and she says look i know that you are in love with hermione that you have eyes for her but you Should know that she is actually in love with someone else it turns out that hermione has this secret love affair with her father's secretary mr edmonds and they've been exchanging love letters for a long time now and lucy is not a fan of this match if that's what you can even call it she sees absolutely no future between

hermione and mr edmunds she knows it's an impossible match and she tells hermione as much but hermione keeps saying that there really is no Choice for her she saw mr edmunds she saw like the back of his head very similarly to how gregory saw hermione and just she fluttered is what she calls it she fell instantly in love and there's no choice for her she just loves him she has to be with him you know propriety be damned we also find out that lucy is all but engaged to a young man a family friend named

mr hazelby and this match has been arranged by her uncle robert who has been her guardian And her brother's guardian for as long as she can remember and lucy is more than happy to go along with this arranged marriage she doesn't really want true love nor does she think it's real like when hermione talks about seeing the back of mr edmund's head and fluttering and falling in love she just dismisses it doesn't really believe in it so the next day at aubrey hall gregory makes it a point to be paired up with hermione when all

the lords and Ladies the single ones go on this promenade to the shopping center and when he tries to talk to hermione she is really giving him nothing back he's putting on you know his best face trying to be as charming as possible but it's just getting nowhere with her and lucy sees this and lucy actually kind of likes gregory for her friend you know he's handsome he's from a good family and while he may not be a first or even second son he's a much Better match than mr edmunds so the next morning lucy

actually pretends to be sick in order to get hermione to go downstairs to breakfast without her and hopefully see gregory and talk with him and he actually manages to engage hermione in conversation now when hermione goes back upstairs to lucy she tells lucy that she actually got along well with gregory that she was charmed by him but she's actually very confused because she is convinced that mr edmunds Is the only one for her so how is it possible for her to take a liking to gregory and you know flutter around him as well in her

words in that moment it is announced that lucy's older brother richard has arrived at aubry hall and he's there to see lucy and bring her back to their home to see their uncle he wishes to see her now lucy is obviously very shaken up like why the hell is he here what's going on it must be an emergency But richard is really only interested in hermione wanting to know how she is and gregory picks up very quickly that richard has feelings for hermione eventually lucy and richard get to talking and richard lets her know that

their uncle has officially signed the papers and lucy is to be married to mr hazelby asap and lucy feels strange she suddenly starts tearing up and crying and she has no idea why of course we as the reader know exactly why what i Really enjoy about this book is just how involved kate and anthony are in gregory's life he really looks up to their relationship and really admires the love that they have for one another and that's just like a running theme throughout this entire book and so it just kind of makes me think ahead

to gregory's season in the show and i just can't wait to see this storyline i really hope they keep it having kaiden anthony constantly around And giving gregory advice especially kate kate and him have this really adorable relationship and i just i really hope that we see this in the show as well so during the final ball at aubrey hall gregory and lucy are talking they dance and then they both notice that hermione is nowhere to be found as well as richard so they're both missing and gregory immediately starts to panic and thinks that they've

gone off somewhere together and if they are found They will have to get married and that obviously freaks gregory out they are searching all over the house trying to find them before anyone else does and eventually lucy is the one who breaks free from kate and gregory and finds them when they find richard gregory and him get into a fistfight in a scuffle and kate sort of drags hermione out from the bushes and the orange trees where they are and hermione's dress is all rumpled and her hair is kind of a mess So obviously they've

been at the very least making out if not doing more and hermione just sort of burst into tears runs to lucy and hugs her and tells her i fluttered once again that word that she uses when she talks about being attracted to somebody liking somebody those first feelings of like falling in love gregory proceeds to get white girl wasted after this because obviously hermione and richard have to get engaged after what happened and while he's drunk Lucy is on her way back to her room and they run into each other and they actually end up

kissing for the first time the next morning hermione comes to lucy and apologizes and tries to explain the situation she basically says that she's just been very confused she thought that she was in love with mr edmonds because it was like that lightning bolt feeling when she saw him but then she talked to gregory and started to like him and then when she Was with richard she just felt so comfortable they made each other laugh and she realized that that is really the feeling of love feeling like you are at home with someone and lucy

kind of gets really shocked because that is the same way that she feels about gregory she gets those lightning bolt feelings and she also feels comfortable and he feels like home to her while lucy is having her revelation gregory also comes to the understanding that he never really loved Hermione he more was just desperate for love and sort of just like projected that onto her they didn't really suit one another at all it was always a struggle for them to have any kind of conversation gregory also finds that he can't stop thinking about lucy so

he finds her right when her carriage is being packed and she's about to go home to her uncle and he sort of apologizes for the kiss which is the gentlemanly thing to do and Basically both of them in their own heads know that the kiss meant something know that they are pretty much in love with each other but they just won't say it and so then they're also like mad at each other for pretending like the kiss didn't mean anything it's like miscommunication trope filled with like mutual pining at the same time it was great

i actually love this scene so we jump ahead about a month and now lucy's wedding to mr hazelby is only a Month away so hazel b's father whose name is lord davenport they both come over to her home for dinner one night so her uncle robert is there there's hazel be her betrothed and then his father lord davenport i know there's a lot of people just bear with me so they're all there at dinner and laura davenport is a [ __ ] prick like he looks at lucy's gums and like touches her waist to see

if she has like Childbearing hips he like interrogates her at dinner and makes her recite her times tables because he doesn't want his son to breed with a idiot but he also doesn't want her to be like too smart and have things to say like it's just a mess and lucy is the kind of person who really doesn't stand up for herself and just kind of allows people to walk all over her as long as it doesn't create issues she doesn't like confrontation she wants everyone to be happy so even Though she like knows that

this is wrong and it's pissed off she doesn't do anything to stand up for herself and she's just kind of like waiting for someone else to say something but of course nobody does which you know i understand and i sympathize with being a people pleaser but girly we need to grow a backbone because this man was inspecting you like a brewed mare i believe it's the next day when gregory and lucy run into one another at A park and they get to talking they fall back into their same routine of talking teasing it's all very

comfortable and very familiar until of course lucy reveals that she is going to be married very very soon to mr hazelby and gregory is shocked because it turns out that mr hazelby is actually gay after this scene the next most important thing that happens is violet sitting down with gregory and just like in all the books previously she basically states to Gregory what his issue is like i mentioned she does with this with every single one of her children it's actually a little bit hilarious the way that she sits them down and is like this

is what's wrong with you this is why you can't find true love so you need to fix this like immediately i personally think it's so funny she's basically like every single one of her children's therapist so basically she tells gregory that because he is so far in age from His three brothers who were all born consecutively he feels like he always needs to prove himself to them and prove that he can do things on his own but then the issue is that being the youngest things also come to him very easily so when there's a

challenge when he needs to fight for something he tends to just give up rather than fail while trying so at the next society ball gregory ends up seeing lucy across the room and he feels all those feelings he Felt when he saw hermione accept just like 10 times more intense he asks her to dance and while they're dancing he realizes that lucy is it for him not only does he feel those like lightning bolt feelings he also just feels so comfortable with her they're good friends they make each other laugh he likes talking to her

and so he tells lucy to meet him in the library alone and while they're there they profess their love to one another and they both Agree that lucy will have to break off her marriage and engagement to hazel b so lucy goes to her uncle robert and says that she wants to end the engagement and he flips out and tells her that that is not possible and that apparently they owe lord davenport remember hazel b's father they owe him a debt and lucy is part of that debt because lucy's father apparently betrayed the crown and

sold secrets to the french during a war so he sold Secrets and is a traitor to the crown and lord davenport knows about this and has like written proof of this and if they don't want anyone to find out about that and for their whole family to you know get caught up in scandal for her older brother to lose uh the earldom because that will be taken away from him lucy has to shut up and marry mr hazelby so gregory tries to go see lucy the next day but she refuses to see him and she

keeps refusing to see Him up until the night before the wedding now gregory manages to sneak into the house they reaffirm their love and they end up sleeping together the night before the wedding but the next morning lucy still decides to get married gregory sees her get into the marriage carriage marriage carriage so then we take it all the way back to the prologue and we see gregory burst Into the church the entire tawn is there this is like a huge [ __ ] wedding and gregory bursts in he professes his love to her lucy

i was about to say hermione to lucy and lucy says no she says no to gregory in front of everybody uh it's a mess it's an absolute [ __ ] mess because then lord davenport like attacks gregory and they get into a scuffle and then anthony and colin are trying to like drag gregory Out into a carriage it's just like a total mess they eventually get gregory out of there and they're all driving away all the bridgetons it's like this really embarrassing thing and the ceremony with hazel b and lucy continues and they do get

married now gregory for the first time in his life is not going to back down from a challenge so he sneaks his way back into the house where the reception is happening he finds lucy alone in her room and he's basically Asking her why and telling her like look you haven't consummated the marriage you can still get it annulled but lucy keeps saying no no no and then finally gregory manages to rattle the truth of the blackmail out of her and you know up until this point gregory was actually doing pretty well of all the

male heroes in the richardson verse he wasn't doing too bad okay there wasn't really any casual misogyny being dropped anywhere yes he was misguided yes he Knows how to instigate drama with you know interrupting that wedding but it was a little iconic but then gregory proceeds to do something that's just so it's so out of nowhere like when i tell you this entire like final part is just like cw soap opera like moment one after another it's insane so basically gregory realizes that lucy will never put her own happiness over her brother and Hermione's happiness

by the way her brother and hermione got married and now richard is going to be the earl so he knows that she'll never you know do anything to hurt them so he picks lucy up puts her over his shoulder and then ties her up in a maid's water closet so that she can't run away because he has a plan to fix this it's just it's not great is it what the [ __ ] is happening like when this was happening i Hon like it felt like a farce i was like what am i reading right

now like this is not this doesn't even feel like a bridgerton book like these final few chapters i felt like i was reading an entirely different series like ms julia quinn kind of just went off the rails with this anyway uh gregory ties her up i can't believe i said that i cannot believe those words came out of my mouth he ties her up and says just give me one Hour to fix this and you know lucy doesn't seem too upset about being tied up but at the same time it's just not great anyway let's

move on so gregory goes to find hermione and richard and tells them about the whole situation and richard is like yeah there's no way that my father would betray the crown like i knew him when he was alive that's just not something he would ever do and so gregory kind of starts to doubt it too however at the same time lucy's uncle Robert finds her in that closet he takes her drags her out starts threatening her saying that she has to go through with the marriage that he will stand there and make sure that she

consummates it and he even pulls out a gun and like threatens her life and points it at her so gregory ends up finding them and then he pulls out a gun and points it at robert this is so insane okay i just i have to i'm sorry i'm gonna push through because it's just so Wild i can't even deal with it so gregory is pointing a gun at robert who's still pointing a gun at lucy and threatening her and it's basically revealed that robert is actually the traitor and then suddenly the room is filled with

like richard and hermione and hazel b and like everybody's there and then gregory hears like a gunshot so then he shoots robert and then robert falls on top of lucy and then gregory thinks that lucy was shot it turns out She's fine and yeah it's just a mess just a mess i mean jesus i feel like i'm watching [ __ ] dynasty so anyway things work out lucy is fine she hasn't been hurt and gregory manages to get lord davenport to shut up about the whole you know traitor thing and he also makes sure that

robert leaves the country never to be seen again and then finally gregory and lucy can get married and in the epilogue we actually find out that gregory and lucy Outdo edmond and violet because they have nine [ __ ] kids nine kids pretty much back to back lucy i god bless god bless you you're a saint so i changed up the shirt to do this like final thoughts part and outro because i don't know if you guys saw but i had some massive pit's names anyway i'm a sweater let's move on so i thought i

would provide some final thoughts here and most Importantly give my definitive ranking of all the bridgeton books minus the first one i'm honestly like myself a little bit shocked by my ranking i'm sure that it'll shock some of you especially all of you who have gotten to know me through my love for anthony but i think reading these books really just showed me that while king anthony and the show i think are going to be one of my favorite couples of all time and i really don't See any other british and couple beating them at

least in the show universe i have to say that they are no longer my number ones in the book bridge reverse so my ranking of the seven richardson books that i read is as follows from bottom to top coming in at number seven the obvious pick to sir philip with love trash trash trash trash i don't want to see Any bit of it in the show at all at number six we have an offer from a gentleman still trash not as trash as sir philip and his [ __ ] but still kind of trash coming

in at number five we have on the way to the wedding this one would have been higher but then we got to all the melodrama at the end and while i am a fan of you know a little bit of drama that was just way too much like just way too much and frankly it got a bit stupid coming in at Number four we have romancing mr bridger chin colin and penelope are cute i wish that julia quinn hadn't made her lose all that weight before they got together thankfully they will be doing away with

that in the show god bless and like i said i feel like their book their issues as a couple were probably like the most realistic and understandable of all of the couples coming in at number three we have the vi count who loved me i know i know shocking but really the more i Think about book kate and anthony versus show kate and anthony i feel like the more qualms i have with book kate and anthony like book anthony really could be like a bit of a chauvinist sometimes but then again all the bridgeton guys

can be that's the thing like the one thing if you have to take one thing away from this video it's that every single one of the men in these books are misogynists on some level you just Have to sort of figure out for yourself which one which type of misogynist you can stand for me i cannot stand a child abuser misogynist aka philip crane and i cannot stand a classist misogynist aka benedict coming in at number two we have it's in his kiss and i feel like i ranked this one the highest because it was

just so damn fun and so like refreshing and different from all the other romances i love the treasure hunt aspect of this story i pray to god that They keep that in the show and i just love hyacinth i love how she truly just says whatever she wants whenever she wants i love that she is happy to say something even if it means other people won't like her because she's just that convinced that she is right and finally coming in at number one the undisputed best bridgerton book when he was wicked everyone gave a round

of applause for francesca and michael best richardson book couple i said it before I'll say it again francesca and michael their smut scene will never be beaten it's like just one of the best smut scenes the best sex scenes i've read in any romance book and francesca and michael delivered in all the tropes that i love you know mutual pining friends to strangers to lovers they have great banter they challenge one another and yet they also like tease and have fun with one another i love the sort of like angst of feeling like they're betraying

Jon by being together looking at this list there are only like three books and three rankings that i feel really strongly about and that is the first and the two last ones i firmly believe that when he was wicked is the best richard book i will not hear any arguments and i also believe that tooths are filled up with love and an offer from a gentleman belong on the bottom in that order the other books i can definitely see arguments you know either way about Whether they should be ranked above one another it's really only

those like three books that i feel very passionate about that they should be where they are the rest i can give or take on a given day so yeah i guess that's the end of this video the end of this richardson reading experiment it took me a damn long time to film this video and i know it's going to take me even longer to edit it i'm not looking Forward to that go ahead and let me know which books are your favorites and your least favorites let me know what you're excited to see adapted on

the screen i have a strong feeling that next season they're gonna start planting seeds for benedict francesca and maybe even eloise's story lines maybe not eloise but definitely benedict and francesca i feel like we're going to see francesca debut and potentially marry john by the end of the season and i think we're Definitely going to get that masquerade ball where benedict sees sophie for the first time all very exciting stuff if you guys enjoyed this video don't forget to like subscribe share it wherever you want to if you want to i went off script this

is not my usual outro um if you guys want to find me anywhere else all those links will be down below i love you all very dearly and i look forward to seeing you in my next video bye [Music] You