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guybrarian133 's review for:
Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History—without the Fairy-Tale Endings
by Linda Rodríguez McRobbie
To join the chorus of several others who have read this book, I liked the idea behind it, but the end product turned out to be....well, problematic, to say the least.
For me, one of the biggest issues is the enormous disconnect between its aggressive self-presentation as a history book about women who were anything but stereotypical princesses, and a lot of its actual content. It's a book that plainly states right in its title "Real Stories from History, yet in the very first section, several of the first women it covers are figures who are famous for exploits that are far, far from established historical fact. To make matters even more confusing, the the author plainly admits it whenever someone's accomplishments are based on mere unsubstantiated stories more than anything.
If "Princesses Behaving Badly" is so gung ho on presenting royal woman breaking the mold, it could at least do so with solid real-life examples. Trying to create an alternative narrative to Disney-style fairytale princesses stories is a lot less effective when those other tales, although a lot darker and grittier, may also be no more real.
I couldn't finish this book. This is not the light and interesting history read I wanted. And I don't think this book knows exactly what it wants to do, to be honest.
For me, one of the biggest issues is the enormous disconnect between its aggressive self-presentation as a history book about women who were anything but stereotypical princesses, and a lot of its actual content. It's a book that plainly states right in its title "Real Stories from History, yet in the very first section, several of the first women it covers are figures who are famous for exploits that are far, far from established historical fact. To make matters even more confusing, the the author plainly admits it whenever someone's accomplishments are based on mere unsubstantiated stories more than anything.
If "Princesses Behaving Badly" is so gung ho on presenting royal woman breaking the mold, it could at least do so with solid real-life examples. Trying to create an alternative narrative to Disney-style fairytale princesses stories is a lot less effective when those other tales, although a lot darker and grittier, may also be no more real.
I couldn't finish this book. This is not the light and interesting history read I wanted. And I don't think this book knows exactly what it wants to do, to be honest.