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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
I enjoyed this greatly, and am especially glad for the prose in certain sections.
Well written, easy read, interesting take on the Anne Boleyn story.
So I spent most of the summer in a cast, but just before that happened, I spent the day at the beach. Karen and I packed snacks and drinks and books and met up at Montrose Beach on one of the hottest damned days of the summer - 106 at 6pm, so I don't want to think about how hot it was earlier in the day. We spent the afternoon alternating between soaking up sun on our beach towels with our books, sipping cheap-ass margaritas that were cold once upon a time - and running as fast as we could across the crowded, scorching beach to wade out into the lake as far as the teenaged lifeguards in rowboats would allow.
I'm a new beach-goer. Last summer was the first time I really understood what you do at the beach - which is to say,nothing. You do nothing at the beach. A whole lot of nothing. If you're anything like me, you're not used to doing nothing - but that's the subject of another, long overdue post.
Last summer, for the first time in my life, I got a sunburn on my butt from lying on the beach at Devil's Lake. We laid there long enough that I read a thick issue of Vanity Fair cover-to-cover. I wore my vintage-esque strapless suit, occasionally ventured into the very clear water, and generally idled away a lovely afternoon. When we got to Madison the next day and I used a real shower, I was shocked to discover the red lines on my butt - and took them as an indication of how relaxed we'd gotten by the midpoint of our week-long vacation.
The beach and the associated burns were signature elements of my early summer - M and I getting burned at the Dunes, then again on an overcast day on a Chicago beach in May. Biking to Foster Beach to meet Carrie and Stef, the former avoiding sunburn despite her porcelain skin and aversion to sunscreen, while I burned stripes on my back because, oops, I forgot that I would be in the sun for an hour before getting to the beach and applying sunscreen. M and I falling asleep by the ocean in Imperial Beach and waking up with possibly the most absurd sunburns ever.
The sunburns went along with a fair amount of beach reading: [b:Let the Great World Spin|5941033|Let the Great World Spin|Colum McCann|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320561164s/5941033.jpg|6113503] in Indiana, the bleakness providing a strange contrast to the exceptional beauty of the sand and the lake. Hemingway's letters by the ocean, reading about him falling in and out of love with Agnes von Kurkowsky. Finishing [b:Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab|11332720|Hack Stories from a Chicago Cab|Dmitry Samarov|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327926902s/11332720.jpg|16261182] for my book club on the beach at 12th Street in the middle of a day of biking all over the city - brunch with Mike in University Village, east to the lake, north to dodge a storm, further north to Foster, south to Lincoln Park for iced tea and Lush, east to the beach after the storm broke, northwest to Wicker Park for drinks and gelato with Julie, then finally home, 36 miles later.
I was reading The Other Boleyn Girl at Montrose the day I broke my arm, and finished it over the next few days full of hours spent in the emergency room (4) and assorted waiting rooms (2x3). I have to say - I'm pretty sure it is the perfect book to read in those circumstances. It's trashy enough - a young married girl seduces a king! who is then seduced by her sister! who convinces him to leave his faithful wife and take on Rome in order to get her in bed! and then maybe seduces her brother because she can't manage to give the king a male heir! - to pick up and put down between dips in the lake or shots in the arm or x-rays. It's enthralling enough - lush descriptions of food and dancing and sex and the countryside, at least reasonably accurate English history - to keep the reader distracted from the fact that her arm is in traction and her summer plans have been derailed. And it's thick enough, at 672 pages, to last through those interminable appointments, waiting for bad news but hoping for good.
In short: an excellent beach read. Maybe not an excellent read, but an excellent beach read, and just what the doctor ordered for my broken arm summer.
I'm a new beach-goer. Last summer was the first time I really understood what you do at the beach - which is to say,nothing. You do nothing at the beach. A whole lot of nothing. If you're anything like me, you're not used to doing nothing - but that's the subject of another, long overdue post.
Last summer, for the first time in my life, I got a sunburn on my butt from lying on the beach at Devil's Lake. We laid there long enough that I read a thick issue of Vanity Fair cover-to-cover. I wore my vintage-esque strapless suit, occasionally ventured into the very clear water, and generally idled away a lovely afternoon. When we got to Madison the next day and I used a real shower, I was shocked to discover the red lines on my butt - and took them as an indication of how relaxed we'd gotten by the midpoint of our week-long vacation.
The beach and the associated burns were signature elements of my early summer - M and I getting burned at the Dunes, then again on an overcast day on a Chicago beach in May. Biking to Foster Beach to meet Carrie and Stef, the former avoiding sunburn despite her porcelain skin and aversion to sunscreen, while I burned stripes on my back because, oops, I forgot that I would be in the sun for an hour before getting to the beach and applying sunscreen. M and I falling asleep by the ocean in Imperial Beach and waking up with possibly the most absurd sunburns ever.
The sunburns went along with a fair amount of beach reading: [b:Let the Great World Spin|5941033|Let the Great World Spin|Colum McCann|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320561164s/5941033.jpg|6113503] in Indiana, the bleakness providing a strange contrast to the exceptional beauty of the sand and the lake. Hemingway's letters by the ocean, reading about him falling in and out of love with Agnes von Kurkowsky. Finishing [b:Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab|11332720|Hack Stories from a Chicago Cab|Dmitry Samarov|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327926902s/11332720.jpg|16261182] for my book club on the beach at 12th Street in the middle of a day of biking all over the city - brunch with Mike in University Village, east to the lake, north to dodge a storm, further north to Foster, south to Lincoln Park for iced tea and Lush, east to the beach after the storm broke, northwest to Wicker Park for drinks and gelato with Julie, then finally home, 36 miles later.
I was reading The Other Boleyn Girl at Montrose the day I broke my arm, and finished it over the next few days full of hours spent in the emergency room (4) and assorted waiting rooms (2x3). I have to say - I'm pretty sure it is the perfect book to read in those circumstances. It's trashy enough - a young married girl seduces a king! who is then seduced by her sister! who convinces him to leave his faithful wife and take on Rome in order to get her in bed! and then maybe seduces her brother because she can't manage to give the king a male heir! - to pick up and put down between dips in the lake or shots in the arm or x-rays. It's enthralling enough - lush descriptions of food and dancing and sex and the countryside, at least reasonably accurate English history - to keep the reader distracted from the fact that her arm is in traction and her summer plans have been derailed. And it's thick enough, at 672 pages, to last through those interminable appointments, waiting for bad news but hoping for good.
In short: an excellent beach read. Maybe not an excellent read, but an excellent beach read, and just what the doctor ordered for my broken arm summer.
I wasn't expecting to like this one that much, but I really loved it! I've not read much historical fiction and it always surprises me how much I enjoy it.
Clocking at nearly 700 pages, Gregory somehow manages to make this story seem to fly by (I tore through this in 4 days). Before picking this up, I always groaned when any monarchy questions came up on Jeopardy - I knew nothing and couldn't have told you the difference between any of the Henries, Edwards, Elizabeths, and Catherines that I knew were floating around out there. I'm amazed at how much I picked up, how much I was interested in who's related to who (I even Wikipedia'd Queen Elizabeth II to see how she's related to Henry VIII - cousins, if you're interested), and how delicious the scandals were. I always picture the royalty being so formal and stuffy, but they were craaazy - who would have thought? There's lying, sneaking, sham marriages, baby stealing, incest, rivalries, and blatant deception just to name a few things. It's like a bad soap opera, but without the guilt, since it's based in actual historical events.
Interestingly, the sole knowledge I had about Henry VIII when I picked up this book was from a TV show I saw on the Science channel, NatGeo or the like where it talked about how obese Henry VIII was. I vividly remember the show's host going to a quaint little grocery store/market in England and buying all the food that Henry would eat in one day. It was ridiculous and explained his burgeoning waistline. It was hard to reconcile this mental picture (and handy computer generated 3D images of how he looked) with this supposedly dashing young prince who had women practically throwing themselves at him. However, now enamored with all things Tudor, I added The Tudors Showtime series to my Netflix queue (instant, thankfully) and can definitely see the appeal if he was anything like Jonathan Rhys Meyers! And the movie adaptation of the book has been added to my Netflix queue, as well. I don't know how well 700 pages will translate into a 2 hour or so movie, but I can't wait to see it.
Most people know what this story is about, so I'll be brief - two sisters, Mary and Anne Boleyn, are young women in the court of Henry VIII in England. He's married to Catherine, who was married to Henry's older brother, Arthur, but after his untimely death, was married to Henry. She was a few years older than him and they were married for 24 or so years. During their marriage, though, he had numerous affairs with various women who were Catherine's ladies in waiting (and this was generally taken as a given and it was unspoken rule that the queen would just have to deal). One such affair, was with Mary, beginning (according to Gregory) when she was about 14. Mary bore Henry 2 children, including 1 son. During her second pregnancy, Henry began to get bored and started seeing Mary's sister, Anne. While Anne never slept with Henry (according to Gregory) until they were nearly wed, she convinced him to dethrone Catherine (who only had 1 daughter with Henry despite his deperate need for a son to carry on his reign). Drama ensues all over the place, people are beheaded, charges of incest and sorcery are leveled, and things get ugly. Of course, Henry had 6 wives, so predictably, things don't end well for Anne. Gregory's book is unique in that while most know of Anne Boleyn, the story is told from Mary's POV. Hence, the eponymous title of the book, the other Boleyn girl. I found the relationship between Mary and Anne fascinating - they loved and hated each other so passionately. Their relationship, especially Anne's, with their older brother George was also interesting. I also found the interplay between Mary and Queen Catherine intriguing since the Queen knew what Mary was doing with her husband. However, formal rules of the court prevailed and awkwardness ensues.
Obviously Gregory took some liberties with the characters and some events; very little is actually known about Mary and George and Anne may not have had an incestuous relationship in her attempts to bear Henry a son, and George may not have been gay (and really, aren't the last two mutually exclusive). But to me, getting to see the characters so up close and personal really brought them to life, especially since I wasn't expecting them to be so exciting or... real, even. I was expecting them to flat, proper, and dull. I'll definitely be picking up more of Gregory's books; she's penned a prequel and a sequel to this one that I'm excited to get my hands on. Even if this isn't your typical genre, I'd encourage you to at least try it - I know I was pleasantly surprised.
Clocking at nearly 700 pages, Gregory somehow manages to make this story seem to fly by (I tore through this in 4 days). Before picking this up, I always groaned when any monarchy questions came up on Jeopardy - I knew nothing and couldn't have told you the difference between any of the Henries, Edwards, Elizabeths, and Catherines that I knew were floating around out there. I'm amazed at how much I picked up, how much I was interested in who's related to who (I even Wikipedia'd Queen Elizabeth II to see how she's related to Henry VIII - cousins, if you're interested), and how delicious the scandals were. I always picture the royalty being so formal and stuffy, but they were craaazy - who would have thought? There's lying, sneaking, sham marriages, baby stealing, incest, rivalries, and blatant deception just to name a few things. It's like a bad soap opera, but without the guilt, since it's based in actual historical events.
Interestingly, the sole knowledge I had about Henry VIII when I picked up this book was from a TV show I saw on the Science channel, NatGeo or the like where it talked about how obese Henry VIII was. I vividly remember the show's host going to a quaint little grocery store/market in England and buying all the food that Henry would eat in one day. It was ridiculous and explained his burgeoning waistline. It was hard to reconcile this mental picture (and handy computer generated 3D images of how he looked) with this supposedly dashing young prince who had women practically throwing themselves at him. However, now enamored with all things Tudor, I added The Tudors Showtime series to my Netflix queue (instant, thankfully) and can definitely see the appeal if he was anything like Jonathan Rhys Meyers! And the movie adaptation of the book has been added to my Netflix queue, as well. I don't know how well 700 pages will translate into a 2 hour or so movie, but I can't wait to see it.
Most people know what this story is about, so I'll be brief - two sisters, Mary and Anne Boleyn, are young women in the court of Henry VIII in England. He's married to Catherine, who was married to Henry's older brother, Arthur, but after his untimely death, was married to Henry. She was a few years older than him and they were married for 24 or so years. During their marriage, though, he had numerous affairs with various women who were Catherine's ladies in waiting (and this was generally taken as a given and it was unspoken rule that the queen would just have to deal). One such affair, was with Mary, beginning (according to Gregory) when she was about 14. Mary bore Henry 2 children, including 1 son. During her second pregnancy, Henry began to get bored and started seeing Mary's sister, Anne. While Anne never slept with Henry (according to Gregory) until they were nearly wed, she convinced him to dethrone Catherine (who only had 1 daughter with Henry despite his deperate need for a son to carry on his reign). Drama ensues all over the place, people are beheaded, charges of incest and sorcery are leveled, and things get ugly. Of course, Henry had 6 wives, so predictably, things don't end well for Anne. Gregory's book is unique in that while most know of Anne Boleyn, the story is told from Mary's POV. Hence, the eponymous title of the book, the other Boleyn girl. I found the relationship between Mary and Anne fascinating - they loved and hated each other so passionately. Their relationship, especially Anne's, with their older brother George was also interesting. I also found the interplay between Mary and Queen Catherine intriguing since the Queen knew what Mary was doing with her husband. However, formal rules of the court prevailed and awkwardness ensues.
Obviously Gregory took some liberties with the characters and some events; very little is actually known about Mary and George and Anne may not have had an incestuous relationship in her attempts to bear Henry a son, and George may not have been gay (and really, aren't the last two mutually exclusive). But to me, getting to see the characters so up close and personal really brought them to life, especially since I wasn't expecting them to be so exciting or... real, even. I was expecting them to flat, proper, and dull. I'll definitely be picking up more of Gregory's books; she's penned a prequel and a sequel to this one that I'm excited to get my hands on. Even if this isn't your typical genre, I'd encourage you to at least try it - I know I was pleasantly surprised.
Thoroughly entertaining, absorbing, quickly readable, totally fictional. A cut above the trashy little bodice ripper I thought I was getting. Skip the dreadful and brainless movie.
Overall this book was well written and kept my interest. I'm a sucker for Tudor-era historical fiction. However, I think it would have been much better if it was about 1/3 shorter. I felt sections of the book were repetitive and did not add anything to the story that we did not already know. I also felt the ending was rushed. But Philippa Gregrory is a talent and I overall I really enjoy her writing style.