Review: The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons #2) by Julia Quinn

Goodreads

What is The Viscount Who Loved Me about?

The Bridgertons series jumps up from Daphne to her eldest brother, Anthony. Anthony has been resisting marriage for years due to unresolved trauma regarding his father’s untimely death. However, recognizing that he will need to have children to ensure his family titles pass on, Anthony decides that he will finally get married. He selects a beautiful debutante as his future bride and discovers that her sister, Kate, must be persuaded first. Kate, for her part, believes she will not find a marriage match when her sister is the diamond of the season. Unfortunately for them both, an unfortunate moment caught in the country results in Kate and Anthony being bound together.

Genre: Historical Romance

Just like the rest of the series, this novel is set during the beginnings of the Regency Era.

Tropes: My Sister is the Pretty One

Kate finds that she is nothing compared to her sister, Edwina, with whom she is sharing the season. Thus, she has a bit of a complex over the idea that anybody could find her attractive at all in comparison.

Plot: Are we supposed to like Anthony?

I’m sorry, but Anthony Bridgerton acts like an asshole pretty much the entire book. He’s really only nice to Edwina because he thinks she’ll make an easy wife to get along with, and then he’s only nice to Kate (briefly) in order to ensure Edwina accepts his proposal. Then he’s just a stubborn ass for most of the rest of the book.

The Good

Quinn is genuinely talented at conveying the romantic interests between her characters, and I did enjoy Kate and Anthony together once they started to get along. I enjoyed the initial game they played as well, and most of Lady Bridgerton’s interference. The family dynamics are always fun to see, and I liked that Anthony’s story gives all of the siblings a bit more backstory about their father since his fate was not particularly important in Daphne’s story. It was also entertaining to get some of that antagonism in the beginning. Anthony and Kate don’t have any real animosity towards one another, but their rivalry in the start is pretty fun.

The Okay

One thing that is mildly weird is that all the books, this one included, seem to have weird moments that focus on Penelope Featherington while ignoring just about everybody else. I know the spoilers reason why this is, but it’s still a weird thing that happens consistently.

The Bad

I didn’t like Anthony’s stubborn superstition that he will die young. Especially when faced with Kate’s own childhood trauma, Anthony’s behavior as a result of his trauma feels somewhat overdramatic. They both work through their feelings in the end, but I definitely felt that Kate’s lack of memory better explained her odd behavior than Anthony’s conviction that he would die young did his.

Final Thoughts

Though this story is very much a carbon copy of the first book in the series, there were just enough differences to be a solid second book. Anthony is a little on the dumb side in terms of his stubborn refusal to believe he might not die young but at least his stubbornness is different from Simon’s. I did enjoy the antagonism to friendship to affection that Anthony and Kate enjoyed, though I am getting tired of female protagonists that can’t tell at all that a man is attracted to them. The naivety that’s popular in characters like Kate is a little overdone and got on my nerves a few times. Otherwise, I thought it was nice to get a bit more of a personal history from Anthony than we got with Daphne.