I spent the last week and change working on updating my site and making some big changes.
To see all the new changes on the blog and why I decided to give my blog a little redo, feel free to check out this post where I go into detail the why behind the new and give you a little tour of what’s new and what’s to come.
I know it’s been only a few days since I’ve posted but with all the things that have been happening behind the scenes, it feels like a lot more time has passed than it has. Today, I thought I’d share what I’ve been up to the past couple of days.
First thing first, I got a new rug and I am in love.
I’ve never had a rug before and I’ve been debating getting one for the past year and a half so when Target started to host massive, almost 50% off, area rug sales, I caved and got myself a beautiful rug. So be prepared for a ton of rug/book background pictures because I’m obsessed.
My place feels ten times more cozy and homely than it did sans rug.
I get really attached to places and things. I’m the type of person who moves into an apartment and gets sad the next day at the thought of having to move out or move to a new place. This kind of thinking extends to many areas of my life that aren’t just interior design related and I constantly have to remind myself that it’s not a good mindset. In fact, this way of thinking is the exact opposite of what I want to achieve which is to plant roots in the moment, embrace the now, and live my life with intention and purpose instead of worrying about tomorrow.
All that said, I got a rug, I’m happy I got a rug, and I’m happy about the thoughts and realizations that went into and came out of buying this rug.
I think the biggest thing that happened the past few days is that I discovered Bridgerton.
I didn’t exactly discover it because as an avid historical romance reader, I’m well aware of the series and have actually read up to book 2 prior to the release of the first season.
When I say discovered it, I mean to say that I discovered that I really, really love the show.
I’m not going to lie, I really hated the first book. The whole non-consensual sex scene and the writing took me right out of the first book. “The Duke and I” and I just didn’t mesh well together. The second book, “The Viscount and Me”, I didn’t really mind. I actually liked it much better than the first one.
I have the memory of a goldfish so a couple of years later, at the beginning of April 2022 when the buzz of Bridgerton Season 2 was at its peak, I decided to give the show a chance. I had seen a couple of trailers and snippets of Season 2 and got super excited because every shot and every scene I saw felt so aesthetic, entertaining, and encompassed everything that I like about historical romances.
So I set out some ground rules for myself. In order to watch Bridgerton Season 2:
- I need to not be a monster and watch Bridgerton Season 1
- I need to reread “The Viscount Who Loved Me” to refresh my memory on the details
So after a long hard day at work, I came home, went on Netflix, and started episode 1 of Bridgerton Season 1 and got sucked in.
Shonda Rhimes is a magnificent woman. That’s all I’ve got to say.
The casting was so perfect and I can most certainly say that the show is much better than the “The Duke and I”, the first book in the Bridgerton Series by Julia Quinn. The show takes the book that lays the skeleton of the plot and intertwines timelines and adds non-cannon subplots that really get you hooked into the story.
I know people get upset when tv show adaptations aren’t cannon but honestly, it’s kind of impossible to do a mass production of an eight episode series with just the contents of one book. TV shows need a lot more content in order to achieve not only a marketable episode length, but also to produce enough intrigue and tension to create and maintain a devoted audience who are invested in the cast and future seasons.
I watched the first season of Bridgerton in a span of three or four days and gushed about it to some of my coworkers, went to the thrift store, admitted my love for the series I was so adamant against watching to an employee, and got my hands on the second book, “The Viscount Who Loved Me”.
I read “The Viscount Who Loved Me” in mostly a day.
I think I read 75 pages the night before and the next day after work, I took myself to a cafe, got myself a slice of cheese cake, and read the entire book.
You guys, I loved the second book. I remember enjoying the second book when I first read it but with this read, I realized I loved it. It’s quickly been added to my comfort/favorite reads shelf. There’s just so much more entertainment, so much more chemistry between the two main characters, and so much more depth to the plot than the first book.
I will have a book review for this book up soon so I don’t want to go into too much detail about it, but if you’re looking for an enemies to lovers romance, I suggest this one. And by enemies to lovers, I don’t mean the I’m going to kill you kind of enemies , I mean the “you vex me” kind of enemies. Please tell me you got that reference if you watched the show. My gosh, I want someone to vex me like those two are vexed at each other, sniffle. Actually, now that I think about it, there were a couple of scenes where Kate, our female mc, did consider murder and I respect that.
After doing my due diligence of bookishly pre-gaming for Bridgerton Season 2, I started the show.
I was so incredibly underprepared for season 2. It was so, so, so good. Season 2 of Bridgerton is easily on the list of my favorite TV shows/movies. It’s such a slow burn and filled with so much subtleties. Season 1 was fast but this felt more like “Pride and Prejudice” or as a meme that’s circulating the internet says, “Ride or Prejudice”. There’s friendship drama, first love, a beautifully done enemies to lovers trope, flawed characters, and discussion of trauma. There’s just so much more depth in this season. The soundtrack in this season is my absolute favorite. Jonathon Bailey and Simone Ashely own my heart, my soul, and everything else that’s left of my being they want. I cannot get this season out of my head. I’ve revisited so many scenes and I knew the moment after I finished the last episode, I had to restart it.
Which spoiler alert, I did.
I also really wanted to get my hands on the next few Bridgerton books because I mean, I’m in the deep end now and I don’t think there’s any going back.
I got myself copies of book 3, book 4, and book 5. I don’t think I’ll read book 6 to book 8 until after the next season but as of now, I’m really interested in reading Benedict, Collins, and Eloise’s stories.
I did manage to read book 3 and book 4 and I’ve got to say, book 2 is still coming out top on the ranking scale for me. I’ve also got thoughts on the books so prepare for upcoming posts.
After watching the Bridgerton series (the first time), I had the biggest itch to get my hands on a friends to lovers romance.
It’s a decision inspired by the storyline of Mr. Colin Bridgerton. If you know, you know.
That’s when I decided to pick up “Hook, Line, and Sinker” by Tessa Bailey. I read the first book, “It Happened One Summer” last year and absolutely loved it. So I was really excited to pick up the second book which follows the sister of the previous book’s main character and her best friend as they share an apartment and start to catch some feelings for each other. That’s all I knew about it before going into the book.
This was a pretty fast read, easy to read, and a good romance. I wouldn’t say it’s a pure friends to lovers romance like “People We Met on Vacation” because there was definitely some pre-existing attraction between the two. But as a book that’s categorized as friends to lovers romance, it did the job. I still prefer the first book though. I’ll have a full review on this soon. I do have to say though, the author decided to give the male main character, Fox, a nickname. The girl mc called Fox, Peacock. I just… I found it to be an interesting choice because not only did it make me cringe a bit, it made me laugh that she’s subbing one animal name with another animal name.
If you’ve gotten this far, thank you! What have you been doing the past couple of days? Have you watched Bridgerton? What’s your favorite Bridgerton book?