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

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I've read all of the Bridgerton books and I do think I liked this better? Maybe? It has more going on than the typical Bridgerton story and I liked that we got perspective chapters from characters outside of the romantic couple, it made the scope of the story bigger and allowed the reader to see the stakes more clearly. I did find the story a bit repetitive and frustrating though.
SpoilerOne of the main plots is that the king "is mad" and has these "episodes" and he hires this super evil sadistic doctor (who literally tortures puppies) and the king repeatedly dismisses and then re-hires this doctor. If something goes well, he dismisses him, at the slightest conflict, he's back to the clearly horrible doctor to get tortured. Apart from that, there are two occasions of either the king or queen overhearing and misinterpreting something the other one said in conversation to the king's mother and then that causing a big conflict that they could have resolved by just telling the other person they overheard and asking what they meant. And they don't EVER talk about it! The queen eventually just gets over what she heard (even though it was taken out of context) and the king never finds out if the queen meant what she said either, she just eventually goes and rescues him from the doctor and he never brings up what he overheard.
I think the Lady Danbury chapters were my favorite, they had a good balance of humor and gravity. I liked the chapters from the perspective of the attendants for the King and Queen
Spoiler and their little romance
I wish there had been more for them, though. I listened to this on audiobook and I thought the narration was good, but I did speed it up (1.25 I think). I have not watched the corresponding Netflix show yet, I wanted to read the novelization first, but I will say that the intros to the chapters that were like "[Character name][place][time]" reminded me of the headings of scenes in a script.
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