A review by mercurialbooks
Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 I feel tricked.

I picked up this book having been told it was a re-telling of Rapunzel. Yes there is a re-telling of Rapunzel within its pages, however the majority of this tale is set in 17th Century Versailles. A story of Charlotte-Rose at the French courts of the Sun-King.

I feel if I had gone in with this expectation I probably would have enjoyed the book a lot more, as I was waiting for the fairy tale chapters for a lot of it. Charlotte-Rose was the French author of one surviving version of Rapunzel and this novel is mainly about her real-life escapades. Forsyth has tied in an adapted version of the Rapunzel tale and how Charlotte-Rose discovered the story in order to write and publish it.

This means the majority of the book is about a rich woman (aspiring author) who keeps making terrible life choices and expects to be treated well by society. I say this because she is born into a time where a woman could only be one of three things, a nun, a wife or a prostitute. Charlotte-Rose expected more. If she were born today, you'd not bat an eye at her decisions, well, maybe
at the dancing bearskin; but at the time, sleeping around with rich men was never going to allow her to succeed in life. I had no pity for her, she had dug her own hole and jumped in willingly, then stamped her feet when no-one could (or would) help her out.


The flip side to this however, and the only reason I didn't DNF the book, was that part-way through we get introduced to the backstory of the witch in Rapunzel. And boy does she have a great villain origin story to tell.
I wanted to squeeze her tight and protect her so badly during her childhood years. It spreads light on the decisions she makes as she grows older and trades 'Bitter Greens' for a beautiful red-headed child, it is done so well that I came quite close to forgiving her entirely for her evil motives. What's another little girl going missing on the streets of Venice right?


The witch section saved the book for me, and I even learnt to enjoy the later Charlotte-Rose sections.
If only to see what silly decisions she would make next for love, in a court and society where love was never on the cards.
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