Review: the Back Half of the Bridgerton Series

I'm going to do something a little unorthodox in this review and lump the last four books of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series together. I read the first two in a single day, and the last two the next day, and while I intended to give each one it's own review, I've just been too exhausted and anxious lately to get anything down on paper. Luckily my feelings for each of these books were pretty similar, so I don't feel it too misleading to group them as I have.

First, the Ratings:

😈😈😈😈.75

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💎💎💎💎.75

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💒💒💒💒.75

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(Specifically, Violet in Bloom): 🪻🪻🪻🪻

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Now, the Thoughts:

You'll notice that all of these books scored pretty highly on my rating system. In this back half of the series, I felt like Quinn leaned away from the psychological realism of her earlier books, and leaned more towards genre- and trope-centric stories. When He Was Wicked is a hurt/comfort story. It's in His Kiss is a mystery/heist novel. And On the Way to the Wedding is such a cliché romance that it almost deconstructs the genre. Kiss and Wedding both make use of a disembodied narrator voice in their chapter titles, that signals a further shift in the narration from realism to constructed narrative. I think I might have liked those books the most, perhaps because they were so bold with their construction.

Looking back on the series as a whole, I think that the series peaked at Romancing Mister Bridgerton. The unmasking of Lady Whistledown was the climax of the series. This back half, while still good, just wasn't the same as the front half. Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth aren't as fleshed out as their older siblings were, which is why I think Quinn leaned more heavily into genre tropes in these books than in the earlier books. There wasn't as much to work with, so she leaned on comfortable conventions. This isn't necessarily a drawback-- after all, these books all scored 4 or more stars. Sometimes you just want a comfortable read, and that's definitely what these books are.  I loved all of them pretty well, even if none of them left quite a big enough impression to clinch that last star in full. They were fun reads, and I'd be willing to listen to them again on audiobook while I was doing the laundry or washing the dishes. Perhaps on a road trip.