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A review by jaepingsu
The Favored Child by Philippa Gregory
4.0
The Favored Child was a much easier read than the previous novel in the series, Wideacre, and luckily it's one of those series that you can actually skip the first and still know what's going on. Since the trilogy is done a generation a book and summarizes well enough what happened in the previous volume, some that have interest in this series might be best hopping in with this volume.
The biggest difference between this and [book:Wideacre] is the protagonist isn't a hateful, evil person willing to commit any crimes to get what she wants. She's an idiot for most of the story, don't get me wrong, but she's an idiot in a way that is believable since she was raised in a very sheltered way. There are times when I seriously wanted to throttle Julia for her blindness to the obvious (then again, after reading the first in the series, it was easy to play "spot the evil!" and get it right) and making such stupid mistakes repeatedly.
Despite Julia being a bloody idiot for most of the story, it was a very interesting read and much improved on [book:Wideacre]. I really found myself sucked into the story, but taking my time to enjoy it because it's a very rich story filled with historical details and fleshed-out characters.
Anyway, for those that might be scared off by the bad reviews of the first volume due to it's over-the-top scandalous nature, this volume is a lot more tame and you can get away with reading it without reading [book:Wideacre]. Of course, knowing exactly what happened during Beatrice's time helps with the foreboding of the story here and certain events don't have as much impact, but by the end of the story everything because clear (and, honestly, there's one major revelation that would be a pretty fun shock).
All-in-all, it was very enjoyable for me!
The biggest difference between this and [book:Wideacre] is the protagonist isn't a hateful, evil person willing to commit any crimes to get what she wants. She's an idiot for most of the story, don't get me wrong, but she's an idiot in a way that is believable since she was raised in a very sheltered way. There are times when I seriously wanted to throttle Julia for her blindness to the obvious (then again, after reading the first in the series, it was easy to play "spot the evil!" and get it right) and making such stupid mistakes repeatedly.
Despite Julia being a bloody idiot for most of the story, it was a very interesting read and much improved on [book:Wideacre]. I really found myself sucked into the story, but taking my time to enjoy it because it's a very rich story filled with historical details and fleshed-out characters.
Anyway, for those that might be scared off by the bad reviews of the first volume due to it's over-the-top scandalous nature, this volume is a lot more tame and you can get away with reading it without reading [book:Wideacre]. Of course, knowing exactly what happened during Beatrice's time helps with the foreboding of the story here and certain events don't have as much impact, but by the end of the story everything because clear (and, honestly, there's one major revelation that would be a pretty fun shock).
All-in-all, it was very enjoyable for me!