The Duke and I, The Viscount Who Loved Me, and An Offer from a Gentleman,”(Bridgerton novels), Julia Quinn
I have decided to write about these three novels together—I only read the first three because I don’t have the rest—because they are remarkably the same in style, plot, and quality. As far as romance novels go, I admit I am not very well versed in the genre, as I don’t tend to read them very often, but these seemed like quite standard examples of your basic romance novel. A handsome man, a beautiful woman, a love story with a happy ending. With lots of admittedly bad writing in between. Although I enjoyed the happy endings, and the fact that the women protagonists always seemed to know themselves and have strong characters, the writing was full of exaggeration and hyperbole, to the extent that most paragraphs/pages/chapters ended with something like, “And she knew without a shadow of doubt that she would love him eternally.” Like I said, something like that. As far as a book and series comparison goes, if you’re only going to choose one, the series is without a shadow of doubt (sorry, I couldn’t help myself lol) the one you want to go with. It is sexy without the need for hyperbole, and tries its best to do away with antiquated concepts like virginity. One small warning, the series takes many liberties with chronology of events and with cutting whole parts of the books from the series. But maybe that’s for the best.
Three Women, Lisa Taddeo
Three Women is a nonfiction book that follows the stories of three separate women and the relationship they have with desire after suffering some kind of trauma or life-altering experience, with all names and places changed, of course. One woman was gang raped when she was a teenager, another was assaulted by a teacher at her high school, and the third realized she was not monogamous after seeing her husband with another woman. I can’t pretend to know how Taddeo chose the three women, but it quite clear that in terms of these women’s lives, the third has less in common with the first two. The book focuses on one woman per chapter and constantly leaves the reader hanging; eager to continue each woman’s story where Taddeo left off. I was wary at first with these women all being “real”, but in the end it made the book more palpable and more, well, real. It’s easier to see where the harm is coming from (generally men) and where the harm is still coming from (generally men). The book does not offer a bright ray of hope at the end for any of the women, not even the survivors, but the fact that they have all chosen to keep on living, and pursing their hopes, dreams, and desires, is hope enough in and of itself.