An Offer From a Gentleman: Bridgerton: Benedict's Story

Benedict Bridgerton is trash. He is a manipulative rich-boy bully who wants to own Sophie and keep her as a pet whilst still keeping his options open for a wife. Once she refuses his offer, he becomes emotionally abusive, coercive and uses blackmail and love bombing to push her into sleeping with him. When she still refuses to be his misstress - he acts like a petulant child, degrading her, laughing at the thought of marrying her and refusing to acknowledge or accept her reasons for refusal and completely disregarding any effect their relationship might have on her standing in society, her chances of future employment or personal life. He never apologises for any of this. To top it all off, once he realises that the woman of his dreams is the same woman he has fallen in love with and that her social class is actually closer to his he...throws a hissyfit, rages, yells and blames her for everything that's wrong in his life...yeah, he's a real catch

The characters are clichéd and inconsistent, the plot barely believable and very unsatisfying at the end. Even the sex gets boring quite quickly, it's so predictable. The historical background is inaccurate and unconvincing. I loved the TV series but I'm not sure why these novels are so popular, Georgette Heyer is an infinitely better author.

Despite the Cinderella story, I find the plot quite dull. I wish the author would give more depth to Sophie, as her own person rather than spending a whole lot of the story pining over Benedict.