Bridgerton 4 Review — Over-Fermented to the Point of Acidity

Yes, over fermented. This book has not aged well in my esteem. The sweetness has soured.

I have a confession to make. I once devoured romance novels the way I devoured Harry Potter. I did not like them, truly speaking. But I couldn’t get enough of them.

My favorites were regency novels featuring plain Jane making her way into the heart of Lord Hottie. Her intelligence and class would impress him and he would grow to find her irresistible. This is not a new confession.

All this came back to me because I revisited the Bridgertons. The beautiful Netflix trailer made me rather nostalgic because Julia Quinn was a guilty pleasure for a 20-year-old me. Good girls like me didn’t watch porn back then, we read it instead.

To be fair though, Julia Quinn is OK at erotica scenes and has a better understanding of consent than the usual kind of historical romance fiction author. Notwithstanding the Daphne assault controversy.

Plot: Colin Bridgerton returns from his travels and finds Penelope Featherington a changed character. Penelope Featherington has finally begun to live for herself. Shall the twain meet and end up together?

My thoughts: I thought it would be light, trashy but fun. It was awful, painful to read, with annoying characters. Is this the intelligent Penelope who ran gossip papers for a decade? This woman who shows gratitude for being chosen? Though Quinn makes it clear that Penelope is under the mother’s thumb and regency society is not kind to women like her, there’s too much begging in her undertone.

Colin, the dreamboat, except turns out he can be vindictive, controlling, and dismissive. Quinn attempts to make him realize his toxicity but I don’t think those misogynist attitudes can be redeemed in any way.

The dialogue was bad, a problem made pronounced by Quinn introducing them as the most intelligent characters in the ton. The banter wouldn’t have gotten them laid even via Bumble. The conversations even if they begin with depth, become poor caricatures of grown-ups accepting their selfish little feelings.

The less said about the remaining Bridgertons, the better. A more annoying family cannot have existed in fiction, and Netflix should be given an award for making them look like the Jonases, rather than the happy joint family of a trashy Bengali serial. I skipped whole passages of their inane dialogues, and the only enjoyable element is Lady Danbury.

I never did read Daphne Bridgerton’s story back then. But I’d read all the others. Eloise’s affair was annoying even back then, so I’d rather torture myself by staying awake 2 nights in a row. I’d likely lose fewer brain cells.

The only one with a halfway decent concept would be Francesca’s marriage and only because she is a widow and therefore there won’t be any inane pedestalizing of ‘the first time’. I hope. I am also thinking of risking a few brain cells on Kate and Anthony’s story.