Scan barcode
A review by ifyouhappentoremember
Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait by Alison Weir
2.0
Anne of Cleaves, or should I say Anna of Kleve, seems to be the wife with a reasonably happy ending. I didn’t know much about her aside from the famous story about her portrait and the relatively friendly relationship she maintained with Henry VIII after the divorce.
Well it turns out, Anna’s relative ease and comfort after the divorce lead to a very boring story. We just read about Anna traveling to different places, wearing different gowns and jewels, hearing major historical events through second hand sources since Anna isn’t at court and, the internal squabbling within her household. If this sounds like riveting storytelling to you then this book is for you. I myself was bored stiff. I started skimming the final 100 pages and I can safely say I did not miss anything important.
I have to say, in the first couple of chapters, Weir takes a major historical liberty (she explains her reasoning for this in the authors note at the end of the book) and at first I was shocked. But then it turned out to be the interesting part of the story which was not the way I thought it was going to go. I guess ever Weir knew Anna’s story wasn’t very exciting.
I am open to reading other books in the series. The other Queens of Henry VIII were not as boring lmao.
Well it turns out, Anna’s relative ease and comfort after the divorce lead to a very boring story. We just read about Anna traveling to different places, wearing different gowns and jewels, hearing major historical events through second hand sources since Anna isn’t at court and, the internal squabbling within her household. If this sounds like riveting storytelling to you then this book is for you. I myself was bored stiff. I started skimming the final 100 pages and I can safely say I did not miss anything important.
I have to say, in the first couple of chapters, Weir takes a major historical liberty (she explains her reasoning for this in the authors note at the end of the book) and at first I was shocked. But then it turned out to be the interesting part of the story which was not the way I thought it was going to go. I guess ever Weir knew Anna’s story wasn’t very exciting.
I am open to reading other books in the series. The other Queens of Henry VIII were not as boring lmao.