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A review by loudgls89
Red Rose, White Rose by Joanna Hickson
3.0
I’m torn with my opinion on this book, I really am. For huge parts of the book the plot was fast paced and kept me engrossed, but then there were times when it felt like a huge slog to keep turning the pages, and in the end it took me over a month to finish reading because I just didn’t feel that ‘urge’ to pick the book up and keep reading.
I’ve not read much historical fiction like this, so I’m not sure if it’s the genre I don’t get on with or just this book, so don’t take my 3 star review too seriously as it might just not be the genre for me.
Personally, I found the main character Cicely a tad unrelatable, and for the other point of view, Cuthbert, I spent most of the book wondering why we needed his perspective. If the book needed a split perspective, I would have rather had a Cicely/Richard split, so we could have some more action included. Since most of the book centered around Cicely’s marriage, it would have been good to see her husband’s point of view too.
The other thing that really bothered me is that the book jumped huge amounts of time with hardly a mention, and I found it really hard to keep up with what year we were moving from and to, which was slightly disconcerting.
On the plus side, I did really enjoy reading a different type of book to my normal young adult/fantasy books. And although I know that it was fiction, I did like the fact that it was based in history and you could get a sense of life 500 years ago. I’ve never really known much about the war of the roses, so it was nice to learn a bit more (although I’m not sure how much to take as fact!).
I have a few Philippa Gregory books that have been sat on my shelf for ages, so I think I will have to read these soon to try and gauge my opinion on the historical fiction genre in general, maybe trying a few different authors will help!
Posted on: http://emmaloui.se/2018/06/25/joanna-hickson-red-rose-white-rose/
I’ve not read much historical fiction like this, so I’m not sure if it’s the genre I don’t get on with or just this book, so don’t take my 3 star review too seriously as it might just not be the genre for me.
Personally, I found the main character Cicely a tad unrelatable, and for the other point of view, Cuthbert, I spent most of the book wondering why we needed his perspective. If the book needed a split perspective, I would have rather had a Cicely/Richard split, so we could have some more action included. Since most of the book centered around Cicely’s marriage, it would have been good to see her husband’s point of view too.
The other thing that really bothered me is that the book jumped huge amounts of time with hardly a mention, and I found it really hard to keep up with what year we were moving from and to, which was slightly disconcerting.
On the plus side, I did really enjoy reading a different type of book to my normal young adult/fantasy books. And although I know that it was fiction, I did like the fact that it was based in history and you could get a sense of life 500 years ago. I’ve never really known much about the war of the roses, so it was nice to learn a bit more (although I’m not sure how much to take as fact!).
I have a few Philippa Gregory books that have been sat on my shelf for ages, so I think I will have to read these soon to try and gauge my opinion on the historical fiction genre in general, maybe trying a few different authors will help!
Posted on: http://emmaloui.se/2018/06/25/joanna-hickson-red-rose-white-rose/