Lady Bridget’s Diary is, structurally speaking, a total mess, and I didn’t believe a single thing that happened in it. However, the characters are delightful. I read this when I was down with the same cold that was afflicting everyone in America that particular week, and it was great for my humble purposes at the time: it was solidly entertaining and enjoyable, and I didn’t have to think a lot.

Lady Bridget’s Diary is, naturally, about Lady Bridget, who grew up with her family in America. Turns out her brother is a duke, so they all have to go to England to take over the dukedom. Since there are no heirs as yet other than her brother and his cousin, Mr. Collins, the girls have to marry. Soon. For this to happen, the sisters have to give up their carefree American ways and conform to proper British High Society mores. Naturally Lady Bridget immediately offends the tender sensibilities of Lord Darcy, who is proper in the extreme. This pisses her off so much that she decides to become the perfect lady.

She also develops a huge crush on Darcy’s brother, Rupert. The plot consists largely of romantic comedy as Bridget swears she hates “Dreadful Darcy” even as she tries to impress him, and Bridget waits for Rupert to propose even though we, the readers, can clearly smell trouble, and the rest of the family gets into scrapes that are clearly set into place so that they can have their own stand alone books.

Meanwhile, there’s a darker set of plots going on. Rupert is being blackmailed over a Big Secret. Bridget’s sister Amelia leaves the house, stays out all night, and comes back the next day with no explanation of where she’s been which means that first of all, the family has their own Big Secret (they can’t have it known that Amelia was AWOL because of scandal) and second of all, Amelia will be getting her own book (we never do find out what she was up to). The whole family is terribly torn about England versus America and there’s an undercurrent of sadness as they try to figure out where they belong.

One of the problems with this book is that the darker plot elements disappear with such alacrity that at one point I seriously thought I must have skipped a couple of chapters, but I didn’t. There are some actual, serious conflicts in this book right up until there aren’t. It’s like magic. I did not believe in these resolutions in the slightest.

Another problem is that book is trying so hard to do so many things at once. It’s homage to Bridget Jones’ Diary, but there’s hardly any diary (although the diary itself is a major plot point, we don’t get to read much of the diary itself). Bridget Jones’ Diary is, of course, homage to Pride and Prejudice, so there’s a ton of that, with a nod to Mean Girls on the side. This book is most enjoyable when it stops trying to mimic other books and is just itself. Lady Bridget is neither Elizabeth Bennet nor Bridget Jones, and the plot rather quickly diverges from the basic Pride and Prejudice story, mostly by throwing in tons of other stuff (various scandals, Bridget wants to fit in, etc.). This is an awfully busy book and it lacks focus. It keeps shooting off in various directions.

All that being said, this is a nice “I’m sick” or “I’m stressed” book. It is immediately obvious that this book is not going to make you seriously worry about anything. The characters are delightful. It’s impossible to not sympathize with Bridget’s longing to fit in and her simultaneous desire to be herself. The author also does a good job with Darcy’s character, showing the pressures he experiences to be perfect and why he is so drawn to Bridget. All the characters are incredibly sympathetic, with the exception of Mean Girl Lady Francesca, and even she has a purpose to the story.

The book is funny and sweet. The clothes are pretty, the food is great, and even the servants are happy, and the romance works well in a “I hate you and I can’t stop thinking about your hair” kind of way, which is huge catnip for some readers.

In terms of plotting, this book ranks a C at best, but I’m giving it a B- because I truly enjoyed the book as a whole. I liked hanging out with Bridget and her family. It’s definitely on the lighter side of romance, but sometimes we need the fluff to get us through a bad patch or a mild illness (darn you, cold). This book is fluff, but it’s nice, warm, fluffy fluff and I sure was grateful for it during cold season.