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wildwolverine 's review for:
The Constant Princess
by Philippa Gregory
Everyone knows who Katherine of Aragon is. She's the first "Divorced" in the Tudor rhyme. I knew a lot about her life while she was Queen of England but very little before that. We're introduced to Katherine in Gregory's book The King's Curse, but here, we get up close and personal with the princess, her poverty, and her supposed passion for the first Tudor prince, Arthur.
I LIKED this book. I tried to like more of it because Katherine is such a fascinating woman, and I'm genuinely curious about what happened between her and Arthur historically. She's driven, cunning, and resourceful but also vulnerable with her own needs and disappointments. Gregory showed us this woman, but this woman was sometimes lost in the noise of Katherine's whining about how much she loves Arthur. Girl, you were with him for 5 months tops. You're trying to tell me he was the greatest love of her life? That everything she did was because of a deathbed promise to him?
It cheapened her. I fully support women falling in love and going after the men they want (Three Sisters, Three Queens does this fabulously), but Katherine was stripped of all personality except for Arthur. There were a couple throwaway lines near the end about how this was secretly her ambition all along, but I don't buy it. Too busy getting hammered over the head with Arthur. It's such a shame because there was so much rich, material here.
Regardless of this fault, the story was still well-written, and you can sympathize with Katherine of the pages she isn't talking about Arthur. When she resists Henry VII, survives poverty, starts to fall for Henry, and becomes regent and fights the Scots you see a brilliant woman and the descendant of Isabella of Castile. You just have to go looking for her sometimes.
I LIKED this book. I tried to like more of it because Katherine is such a fascinating woman, and I'm genuinely curious about what happened between her and Arthur historically. She's driven, cunning, and resourceful but also vulnerable with her own needs and disappointments. Gregory showed us this woman, but this woman was sometimes lost in the noise of Katherine's whining about how much she loves Arthur. Girl, you were with him for 5 months tops. You're trying to tell me he was the greatest love of her life? That everything she did was because of a deathbed promise to him?
It cheapened her. I fully support women falling in love and going after the men they want (Three Sisters, Three Queens does this fabulously), but Katherine was stripped of all personality except for Arthur. There were a couple throwaway lines near the end about how this was secretly her ambition all along, but I don't buy it. Too busy getting hammered over the head with Arthur. It's such a shame because there was so much rich, material here.
Regardless of this fault, the story was still well-written, and you can sympathize with Katherine of the pages she isn't talking about Arthur. When she resists Henry VII, survives poverty, starts to fall for Henry, and becomes regent and fights the Scots you see a brilliant woman and the descendant of Isabella of Castile. You just have to go looking for her sometimes.