A review by htbaumtree
To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn

dark emotional lighthearted sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

I don't actually go here, I just enjoy Claudia Jessie's portrayal of Eloise on the Netflix show, which is probably why I was so disappointed in this story.

I think in the hands of a better writer all the disparate plot points, of which there are MANY--
Phillip's abusive father, the death of his father and his brother, his fear of becoming abusive like his father, his subsequent neglect of his children, his neglect resulting in the opportunity for his children to be secretly abused by their nanny, and of course his irrevocable horniness that he's been sublimating for almost a decade because of his wife Marina's severe depression, not to mention his wife's drawn out suicide, and that's BEFORE we get into Eloise's bag of issues like her increasing loneliness that drove her to accept the proposal of a man she never met and her suddenly being thrown into the deep end of (step)motherhood
--all of that could have been successfully incorporated into a well-woven narrative by an expert author. But as it is, even allowing for a healthy dose of melodrama due to the genre, the execution is so lacking that as I reader I was wondering why Quinn felt it necessary to cram quite so many drama points into one novel when her skills are simply not up to the task. Phillip could have been a far more tragic, sympathetic and noble character, but instead he often comes off as a whiny man-baby who wants a mommy-wife to fix his life for him. And Eloise isn't much better: other than some surface-level traits like impatience, chattiness, impulsiveness, and a go-getter attitude, she often comes off as one-note or 2D. 

I'm ultimately just disappointed. A semi-arranged marriage like this with an epistolary courtship can be incredibly romantic and swoon-worthy if done right. It just so happens that it wasn't done right in "To Sir Phillip, With Love".
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