A Year of Reading: October 2011

[starfishchick]

I'm having trouble with LJ cut-tags (I swear my HTML coding is right but it's just not working if I try to put more than one word as cut-text) so here are the titles reviewed/discussed beneath the cut

Comments

[pescana]

I'm in the middle of The White Queen and man, Gregory writes some seriously unaware characters! I'm enjoying it, but Elizabeth really doesn't see the consequences of her actions. And for a book this long, I'd expect to know the character better than I do.

The Alison Weir book sounds interesting. I've had trouble with her before though, I keep wanting her to put the year in when she mentions dates and she doesn't. (I think it was her Henry VIII book that I had that trouble with.) I don't know that part of history well enough to know the order of things. But no, I wouldn't be surprised to find out there are descendants of Henry VIII out there!

[pescana]

So it wasn't just me then! It makes me hesitant to read anything else of hers, it was confusing and frustrating.

One of the things I found most interesting about The Other Boleyn Girl was how unchanged Mary was at the end. First scene of the book is an execution (Buckingham?) and last scene is too, and in both Mary believes the king will intervene at the last moment. The hero of the story is supposed to change through the course of events, and Mary clearly doesn't. I found that fascinating.

[starfishchick]

I found the Red/White Queen books to be some of Gregory's weakest. After reading them, I went back and re-read The Other Boleyn Girl; it could have been by a totally different author.

Yes, this. I may have issues with Philippa Gregory, but I did generally enjoy The Other Boleyn Girl.

[berreh]

Ugh, Philipa Gregory.

I just started Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick, but I might have to put that off until after NaNo.