Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
It's interesting that Weir has Katherine remain ignorant of Anne Boleyn for as long as she does, but on the other hand, it makes sense when you think about Katherine's inability to conceal her feelings about Injustices. No doubt if she'd known earlier, she'd have made public comment earlier too. Plus, her letters show that she continued to be naive about Henry's capacity for cruelty.
emotional
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Book title: Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen
Author: Alison Weir
Part of a series? Yes (Six Tudor Queens #1)
Format: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
My thoughts: Like a great many people, I learned about Henry VIII and his wives at school. The topic fascinated me at the time. Although, I can now admit that the depth of our study was pretty poor. Since then, I haven’t given it all that much thought. So, I'm not entirely sure why I was drawn to this book. But I'm glad I was.
As a fact-based work of fiction, the plot is as we would expect. We meet Katherine as she is on her way way to England to marry Arthur (Prince of Wales). From there, each chapter takes us through 1-2 years of her life, until her death in 1536. Just 35 years. And yet, we are taken on quite a journey - much more than I expected, if I'm honest.
The book is detailed and well-written. The reader has the world built for them, meaning the ability to visualise what the author wants us to see comes easily.
There is a lot to the story and a LOT of names to try and keep track of. Thankfully, we are provided with family trees, timelines and "character" lists. These are very useful & interesting.
I struggled with Katherine's story. Not because of the writing but because she was treated so badly at times. The changes in Henry VIII truly got to me, and I found myself getting angry on her behalf.
I feel like this book needs a trigger warning for older women trying to have a baby. Although, we do know what's coming. It is factual, after all.
I loved this book more than I expected. I think it's up there on my Top Reads list.
Recommended
Made me want to: Keep learning about Henry VIII's wives. I will be reading the other 5 books
Author: Alison Weir
Part of a series? Yes (Six Tudor Queens #1)
Format: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
My thoughts: Like a great many people, I learned about Henry VIII and his wives at school. The topic fascinated me at the time. Although, I can now admit that the depth of our study was pretty poor. Since then, I haven’t given it all that much thought. So, I'm not entirely sure why I was drawn to this book. But I'm glad I was.
As a fact-based work of fiction, the plot is as we would expect. We meet Katherine as she is on her way way to England to marry Arthur (Prince of Wales). From there, each chapter takes us through 1-2 years of her life, until her death in 1536. Just 35 years. And yet, we are taken on quite a journey - much more than I expected, if I'm honest.
The book is detailed and well-written. The reader has the world built for them, meaning the ability to visualise what the author wants us to see comes easily.
There is a lot to the story and a LOT of names to try and keep track of. Thankfully, we are provided with family trees, timelines and "character" lists. These are very useful & interesting.
I struggled with Katherine's story. Not because of the writing but because she was treated so badly at times. The changes in Henry VIII truly got to me, and I found myself getting angry on her behalf.
I feel like this book needs a trigger warning for older women trying to have a baby. Although, we do know what's coming. It is factual, after all.
I loved this book more than I expected. I think it's up there on my Top Reads list.
Recommended
Made me want to: Keep learning about Henry VIII's wives. I will be reading the other 5 books
I'm so torn about my feelings for this book. I really like Katherine of Aragon. I have so much respect for her and I feel so bad for what happened to her and how she was treated by Henry. She was a strong-willed and impressive woman and Alison Weir's love and respect for her shows in her telling of Katherine's story. But for the first half of the novel there wasn't a lot of interesting things happening in her life. While, at first, it was interesting to see more of Katherine's life before Anne Boleyn came into the picture (which is something I've not read about before - usually I find when Henry VIII is involved it always starts with Anne), it was just extremely slow-paced and this book is ginormous. It started to feel like it would never end.
Weir's writing is great. I'm excited to see if she changes her style when she's writing from Anne's perspective, but from Katherine's it matched her voice perfectly. There were a few times I felt like I was reading a textbook, but mostly I felt that she captured Katherine's voice very well. Because Alison Weir has researched this so well and was dedicated to telling Katherine's story, there were always going to be a couple of slow parts in this, but they started to verge on boring and I almost gave up on this in the first half, but I am glad I kept going. Katherine dealing with Henry and Anne's affair and the ensuing divorce was definitely the highlight of this book, and the whole second half showed Katherine's strength and seeing her really come into her own was amazing.
It was really interesting reading about Anne and even Henry from Katherine's POV. It'll be interesting to see Henry mature and grow through this series, especially from the different women's perspectives. Especially with the overlap, I can't wait to see how differently Henry is perceived by Katherine and Anne. I hope that Alison Weir isn't too biased during Anne Boleyn's novel, because she's vilified so much it'll be nice to see her as a human being and not the devil reincarnate. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series very much.
Weir's writing is great. I'm excited to see if she changes her style when she's writing from Anne's perspective, but from Katherine's it matched her voice perfectly. There were a few times I felt like I was reading a textbook, but mostly I felt that she captured Katherine's voice very well. Because Alison Weir has researched this so well and was dedicated to telling Katherine's story, there were always going to be a couple of slow parts in this, but they started to verge on boring and I almost gave up on this in the first half, but I am glad I kept going. Katherine dealing with Henry and Anne's affair and the ensuing divorce was definitely the highlight of this book, and the whole second half showed Katherine's strength and seeing her really come into her own was amazing.
It was really interesting reading about Anne and even Henry from Katherine's POV. It'll be interesting to see Henry mature and grow through this series, especially from the different women's perspectives. Especially with the overlap, I can't wait to see how differently Henry is perceived by Katherine and Anne. I hope that Alison Weir isn't too biased during Anne Boleyn's novel, because she's vilified so much it'll be nice to see her as a human being and not the devil reincarnate. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series very much.
These take FOREVER to read due to the sixteenth century history and language. But I love the fact they were written by a historian. These are works of fiction but have LOTS of historical fact in them, which is super neat.
I kinda loved learning about Katherine. It was interesting how absolutely devoted she was to her husband and king.
It would have been nice if Henry had access to modern medicine so he could stop blaming the TRUE QUEEN for his shitty sperm.
I kinda loved learning about Katherine. It was interesting how absolutely devoted she was to her husband and king.
It would have been nice if Henry had access to modern medicine so he could stop blaming the TRUE QUEEN for his shitty sperm.
I could read about the Tudor queens all day long. This one was great!
It took me over a year to read this book, partly because I kept having to put it down for book club reads, partly because it's long, and partly because it was a slog. Weir has apparently written many non-fiction works on English royalty, and it shows - she clearly knows her topic. In fact, that was one of my main problems with this historical fiction - no fact or element of Katherine's life seemed left out. This made the story move at a snail's pace and it was easy to lose momentum. Despite such in-depth coverage, the characters felt shallow and surface level. I would have preferred some of the nitty gritty details left out for more character development and plot. Weir's editors could have helped her focus this novel better and also cut the fat some to help with the pacing. Basically, this felt like a lightly fictionalized book version of Katherine's life. While I'd like to see Weir's spin on the other five wives of Henry VIII as a comparison, I'm not particularly interested in picking up another lengthy novel if it is written in the same manner. Hard-core Tudor fans may enjoy this, but otherwise I'd say pass it up.
Note: I also reviewed this book on the Manchester, CT Library Goodreads page.
Note: I also reviewed this book on the Manchester, CT Library Goodreads page.