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autumnxdays 's review for:
The King's Curse
by Philippa Gregory
I picked this up cheap when I went shopping the other day, I know it's not the first in the series but I figured I could read the books out of order. It's been a while since I've read a Philippa Gregory book (almost 10 years!) but I was interested to see if I'd still enjoy them. I really enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance but got bored and didn't finish The Virgin's Lover.
The King's Curse was certainly readable, I managed to get through it in only a couple of days, but it was just okay. I went into this book knowing that the author likes to change stuff around and rewrite parts of history to fit in with the story she wants to tell, so it didn't bother me too much. I do think it's interesting to see other peoples interpretations of historical events even if I don't believe them and I try not to let that bother me. For example in this book (and I'm assuming the rest of the series), it's the Tudor's who are responsible for the murders of the princes in the tower. It's interesting to follow that thought even though I don't believe it's true. It's fiction. Not a history book.
My main issues were that Margaret was boring, I swear that there was nothing to make her standout, nothing about her voice changed over the space of 40 something years (in fact barely any of the characters changed in any way. If there weren't dates and stuff, you wouldn't have realised that so many years had passed), and I just did not give a crap about her. I was waiting for her to die.
The pacing was odd. Parts dragged and then other parts were skimmed past when they would have been much more interesting that the parts that were dragged out. There was a lot of repetition. AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LISTING OF PEOPLE'S RELATIONS. My cousin, the queen, Elizabeth did this. You must obey your father the king. My son Henry cousin to. My cousin Henry earl of whatever the kings cousin. AND THIS CONTINUED THROUGHOUT THE BOOK. It's like the readers are too dumb to realise who was who. Yes, there are a lot of characters with the same name but it's unnecessary. Some variations in how characters are written might have done a lot to help. It really bugged me.
I'll probably read some more of the books, they are easy to read and I love the time period, but I'm going to go in with low expectations I think.
The King's Curse was certainly readable, I managed to get through it in only a couple of days, but it was just okay. I went into this book knowing that the author likes to change stuff around and rewrite parts of history to fit in with the story she wants to tell, so it didn't bother me too much. I do think it's interesting to see other peoples interpretations of historical events even if I don't believe them and I try not to let that bother me. For example in this book (and I'm assuming the rest of the series), it's the Tudor's who are responsible for the murders of the princes in the tower. It's interesting to follow that thought even though I don't believe it's true. It's fiction. Not a history book.
My main issues were that Margaret was boring, I swear that there was nothing to make her standout, nothing about her voice changed over the space of 40 something years (in fact barely any of the characters changed in any way. If there weren't dates and stuff, you wouldn't have realised that so many years had passed), and I just did not give a crap about her. I was waiting for her to die.
The pacing was odd. Parts dragged and then other parts were skimmed past when they would have been much more interesting that the parts that were dragged out. There was a lot of repetition. AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LISTING OF PEOPLE'S RELATIONS. My cousin, the queen, Elizabeth did this. You must obey your father the king. My son Henry cousin to. My cousin Henry earl of whatever the kings cousin. AND THIS CONTINUED THROUGHOUT THE BOOK. It's like the readers are too dumb to realise who was who. Yes, there are a lot of characters with the same name but it's unnecessary. Some variations in how characters are written might have done a lot to help. It really bugged me.
I'll probably read some more of the books, they are easy to read and I love the time period, but I'm going to go in with low expectations I think.