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Maria Antonietta: I Segreti Di Una Regina (2012)

by Juliet Grey(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

8854140937 (ISBN13: 9788854140936)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Newton Compton

series

Marie Antoinette

review 1: I wasn't impressed with the first novel in Juliet Grey's trilogy about Marie Antoinette. So why then did I decide to continue on to the second? I figured since Marie Antoinette's life became more interesting once she became Queen of France, the novel focusing on the same time period would become more interesting. I wasn't entirely wrong but I was far from right.French is not my first language. Thanks to an episode of Friends I understand what Lady Marmalade is really about. Thanks to my children, I know how to pronounce the location in France where my wine comes from. None of those things came in handy while reading this book. Like the last novel, there is a lot of French in this book. Fortunately this edition of the novel came with a French glossary. Unfortunately it matt... moreered little as I was reading this novel on my kindle. Downside of a kindle, it's hard to flip pages to find something like the glossary at the end of the book. Upside of the kindle, it comes with access to Wikipedia so I don't have to try "flip" to the back of the e-book. Most people know Marie Antoinette for her love of excess and some comments about cake (If you believe the later to be true, I beg you to take two minutes away from this review and do a Google search. Don't worry this review will still be here when you come back.) Juliet Grey definitely plays on Marie Antoinette's love of all things fashion and fancy. Part of what saved this book was the extensive detail Grey went into when describing the various hairstyles and dressed Marie wore. The descriptions of the hair styles were by far some of my favorite parts. Marie had a hair style designed and styled to celebrate Louis being inoculated for small pox. Who does that? And what levels of creativity does a person have to possess to design something like that? I did find myself annoyed by the spoiled teenage girl Grey created. The pouting and complaining Marie would do at time drove the mother in me absolutely bonkers. "But I'm the Queen. I have to have it." I'm not entirely sure if that argument was made by Marie or by my six year old. I know the fate that awaits Marie at the end of the final book in this trilogy. Outside of these books, I find her fate to be tragic. Within the context of these books (especially this second one), I find myself thinking, "Well, you've kind of got it coming with that attitude." Marie just comes off as absolutely clueless. Maybe she was. I plan on seeking out a few biographies of Marie after this to determine whether or not that's true. However, I find it difficult to believe someone in Marie's position was as completely clueless as Grey makes her out to be. The other thing that really bothered me about this novel was the entire incident with the "slave's collar" necklace. I know this was a huge scandal during Marie's reign and I understand the importance of it's inclusion in a book about the life of Marie. The way the scandal was incorporated into this particular novel was poorly done. I found the bouncing around from Marie's first person to the various third person's of those involved in the "slave collar" scandal to be confusing and awkward (like Marie and Louis in bed.....BOOM!). Call me stupid but at the end of the day, I'm still going to read the final novel in this trilogy. I'm at the point where I've made it this far, I'm going to finish it. Obviously I know what's going to happen. Part of me is interested in seeing what Grey does with the rest of the French Revolution. At this point it's kind of like a bad accident and I just can't pull myself away.
review 2: This was a disappointing book and did not live up to the first book of the series, Becoming Marie Antoinette. Though the book started out promisingly, it failed to sustain the momentum of the opening chapter and digressed so often into the queen's frivolities (gambling, spending to excess, masked balls) that the book simply became redundant and boring. I understand Juliet Grey was proving the point that historically, Marie Antoinette was disliked by her subjects because of her excess and haughty demeanor, but one or two examples of the midnight parlor games would have been enough. In thinking about how to rate this book, I tried hard not to conflate my distaste for Marie Antoinette's shallow and vapid person with how I judged the book itself. I did like the rich descriptions of the period--from clothing to living habits to poufs--the author painted a vivid picture for the reader and brought the period to life in my imagination. However, the story was slow and Marie Antoinette so insipidly dull that I could not rate it any higher than two stars. less

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