Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

[sarahmichelef]

*love*  I plowed through this faster than I've read anything since Wicked.  Review is not very coherent, for which I apologize.

I'm not Tudor/Eliz person, so I went into it sort of a blank slate, other than reading then entire book chanting "divorced, beheaded died; divorced, beheaded, survived" in my little head.  I loved Mary's perspective, her disenchantment with the court, the description of the change in Henry, her struggle with following her own desires versus her loyalty to her family.  In general, the central characters were very well-developed, especially (obviously) Anne and Mary.  I wanted to know more about William, but probably that wasn't so important to the story.  I would have liked to know more about George, for sure.  I really liked the way she set up the alleged incestuous relationship between and how Mary thinks that her siblings are being a little weird but shrugs it off and at least outwardly refuses to believe it even to the end (whereas a modern reader, even one who doesn't know that Anne was accused of adultery with her brother, will probably go "ewwww" right away).

So, yeah.  Fans of historical fiction of any period should read it.

Comments

[ursulagoddess.livejournal.com]

I'd agree, I really like this book. I hear they're making it into a movie for fall 07.

[kass-rants.livejournal.com]

Now I heard it really sucked and was horribly inaccurate. But granted, this wasn't from people whose tastes I necessarily share. But because I have endless faith in your Right-Thinking-People-ness, my dear A, I am going to have Apprentice #2 smuggle me home a copy from the Borders where she serves coffee. =)

[collegecate.livejournal.com]

this is by far Phillipa Gregory's best book. Though some of the others aren't bad either, I also liked the "Queen's Fool."

[tashadandelion.livejournal.com]

Years ago I read a Philippa Gregory book that turned me off something awful. It was called The Wise Woman and it was fascinating and compulsively readable... until about halfway through, at which point the heroine became someone horrible and unlikable (obsessive, murderous, self-destructive, etc.), and finishing it was torture for me.

If that book was the unfortunate exception, I'm willing to try something else by her, but if this is pretty much her usual characterization arc, I'll avoid. Can you give me the skinny on that?

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

I really liked The Queen's Fool and the Virgin's Lover wasn't half-bad either. I wasn't as fond of The Constant Princess, but I haven't yet read The Other Boleyn Girl...I'll have to pick it up now.

[blazing-sun16.livejournal.com]

I read this right before Christmas and I loved it too. I love historical fiction, though, precisely because of the detail-filling in. But my favorite part of The Other Boleyn Girl was kind of a very small, very snarky aspect: Jane Seymour. In the "divorced, beheaded, died" mantra she's just a footnote, usually portrayed as sweet and weak and feeble (and then dead). But in this book she was a calculating, manipulative bitch just like Anne... and I totally bought it.