This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at _@thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.
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Warning: this review contains spoilers for the entire Bridgerton series, as well as specific spoilers for the entirety of Bridgerton: Happily Ever After.
When you crack open a Bridgerton novel, you expect to see certain elements pressed between the pages. Headstrong heroines, pre-marital relations, misunderstandings, weddings that are anything but typical and kids aplenty. But Julia Quinn leans a little too hard on the latter element with Bridgertons: Happily Ever After. Only a few of the extra epilogues included in the book are worth your while unless you’re deeply invested in the ever-sprawling family’s shenanigans. Otherwise: no uterus is safe.
And I’m serious: whenever Quinn is looking for a touching ‘button’ to narratively push in this book, she just throws a new baby into the pile – a baby inevitably named after some Bridgerton relative or another. Nothing else exciting happens, just babies, more babies, more births and more babies.
This is less noticeable in a book that’s not all about post-married life for these couples, but in Happily Ever After you could set your watch to it and do a drinking game. The fecundity reaches a peak of pure ludicrous hilarity in Francesca’s story, where Francesca and Michael tenderly name their firstborn after John…and then end up having a daughter named Janet. Great baby shower gift idea for any Bridgerton: a baby name dictionary. Holidays must be incredibly confusing down at Bridgerton House.
The number of births offered up by the book is astounding. Menopause means nothing to the Bridgerton clan. Daphne has an oops baby, thinking she’s far beyond her childbearing years when another arrives. Her chapter has some of the most intriguing stuff in the book as a whole, with Belinda emerging as the most interesting figure among the third generation of Bridgerton grandchildren. A tender but hopelessly underbaked revelation about Penelope and Colin’s eldest son also arrives. Then Kate and Anthony have a fun, ribald and rivalrous Pal Mall game that also falls on the “good” side of the ladder.
At this point, baby rabies start to take over the book, overwhelming the narrative until it gets uncomfortable. This is a tome in which Colin tells Penelope his mother will forgive Penelope for being Lady Whistledown if they give her a grandchild (seriously, Violet – you need even more? Are you Lady Elon of Musk?).
Even a character like Francesca — whose infertility is a huge part of her character and whose chapter in this very book copes with her ambivalent feelings about having no biological kids – has not one miracle baby, but two. This is incredibly frustrating, as the way the book handles Francesca’s inner torment over her infertility is beautiful, as is how she comes to grips with just being an auntie in a happy marriage with Michael.
The baby mania peaks with a horrifying thud in Lucy and Gregory’s epilogue, where we witness her hemorrhage and nearly die after giving birth to twins – her eighth and ninth children! While Gregory’s fear and heartbreak in this chapter are touching, I still wanted to give him a vasectomy with a letter opener after reading through Lucy’s incredible pain. Good on the doctor for stepping in and telling them to knock it the fuck off after all of that.
A few more disappointing stories land before we reach a touching and generally well thought-out conclusion. To wit: Amanda Crane falls in love and has premarital sex but I could care less. And Hyacinth finally finds the diamonds she was obsessed with locating in her book – no thanks and yet thanks to her incredibly smug and annoying daughter, Isabella. Bonus points for actually doing something interesting with Hyacinth and Gareth here, instead of just having them pop out another kid.
For all of my carping, several outings save the book from being a D-lister. Besides the Kate and Anthony interlude, Poppy’s quest for love is adorable – though she, too, churns out four kids once a year until her uterus shrugs and gives up. Of course she has yet another “miracle” fifth baby as well, because even associates of the Bridgerton clan must sport a clown-car uterus as well. She names that one after the evil Aramantia as a gesture of goodwill. And calls her “Minty.” Because yes.
The main attraction here is Violet’s tale of finding true love with Edmund, and it is heartbreaking and sweet. But it, too, reveals the limitations of Quinn’s imagination when it comes to happiness for the characters. Make no bones about it: I loved Edmund and love that he was a virgin when he met Violet – a solid counterpart to his rake sons. We follow them from innocent children to happily married couple, and then the bee arrives.
God, poor Violet – with Edmund gone, she has settled back into the role of helpmeet. No second husband for her, and just one dance at a ball, though she entertains the possibility of more. The message is: if you find your true love you will breed until he dies, at which point you will never have a sex life again. After all, your eight kids will finally spit out thirty-three grandchildren and you’ll be too busy to think straight. Good Lord.
That’s one thing I’m thankful the Netflix version of this universe changed – I am glad Violet is the tea someone else will be drinking. As for Bridgerton: Happily Ever After, I’m sending it back. There are too many babies in this soup.
