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A review by sidewalk_pirate
Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen by Tracy Borman
2.0
I was so excited to finally get to this book. I was intrigued by the prospect to learn a bit more about the women in Elizabeth I's life and their role in shaping the Monarch, as well as the woman.
I was aware that there would be some re-hashing of things I knew, since I am an avid "Tudor" reader. I was just not prepared to find the promised new angles and insights entirely missing. :(
Now, I don't want to sound all gruff and mean about this. There were some good things about this book!
If you have never read anything about Elizabeth or the other Tudors, this book is for you! Loads of info and it is easy to follow and well written. The jumping between time-lines as it often is done in other historical books can be quite jarring at times for a beginning reader of history. This book eases you quite nicely into that! (No danger of whiplash here LOL) I think this book struck a great medium about giving information without being too dry to make you loose interest, IF you are new to the subject. All in all it is not a bad book for someone that wants to get into reading about history.
Sadly I have to admit that most of what is written in this book can be gathered from any other Tudor history. (The ones written about Elizabeth's Mother, or her Father, that have little to do with Elizabeth herself give you about as much insight as this book did).
I did have a little problem about the way some of Henry's wives were portrait in this book. I could not agree with some of the summations about these women. The author relied entirely too much on gossip to paint a picture of the wives. Especially Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Anne of Cleves, if you ask me.
I will give this book two stars. I sincerely think it was an OK book.. not bad, but it did not knock my socks off either. That, however, is not the Authors fault.
I was aware that there would be some re-hashing of things I knew, since I am an avid "Tudor" reader. I was just not prepared to find the promised new angles and insights entirely missing. :(
Now, I don't want to sound all gruff and mean about this. There were some good things about this book!
If you have never read anything about Elizabeth or the other Tudors, this book is for you! Loads of info and it is easy to follow and well written. The jumping between time-lines as it often is done in other historical books can be quite jarring at times for a beginning reader of history. This book eases you quite nicely into that! (No danger of whiplash here LOL) I think this book struck a great medium about giving information without being too dry to make you loose interest, IF you are new to the subject. All in all it is not a bad book for someone that wants to get into reading about history.
Sadly I have to admit that most of what is written in this book can be gathered from any other Tudor history. (The ones written about Elizabeth's Mother, or her Father, that have little to do with Elizabeth herself give you about as much insight as this book did).
I did have a little problem about the way some of Henry's wives were portrait in this book. I could not agree with some of the summations about these women. The author relied entirely too much on gossip to paint a picture of the wives. Especially Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Anne of Cleves, if you ask me.
I will give this book two stars. I sincerely think it was an OK book.. not bad, but it did not knock my socks off either. That, however, is not the Authors fault.