beckibullet 's review for:

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander

2.0

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I was really excited to read this book as I have always been interested in learning more about the Romanovs and this was a fictionalized first hand account of the last days of the family. Perfect. However, the first half of it was super slow and ridiculously repetitive. Often phrases were written out in Russian, than immediately translated. At first this was really interesting but than became a little much. Started to seem like merely a way to bump the length/word count. I wanted to give up but pressed on. I was glad that I did as it got very good and became a serious page turner...until the very end turned into complete and utter trash. I love historical fiction. I love reading a story woven with facts and information on time periods, cultures and events that I know little about. The "fiction" part though needs to be only the devise, the serving platter for those fun factoids. When the fiction part starts to take over and the author rewrites history, no thanks.