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Als Mrs. Simpson Den König Stahl (2013)

by Juliet Nicolson(Favorite Author)

2.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

3458359370 (ISBN13: 9783458359371)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Insel Taschenbuch

review 1: Abdication follows the story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson as seen through the eyes of one of Wallis's close friends and the chauffeur of a politician. Although I enjoyed reading it, it seemed in many ways to be a re-hash of similar stories, I particularly thought of the Upstairs, Downstairs Christmas episodes from a few years ago. I suppose that is a difficulty of writing historical fiction about well-known events, but I felt that Abdication didn't really add anything to the story, or offer a particularly interesting perspective. I liked May, the politician's chauffeur and one of the main characters, even though she is a bit on the perfect side. I enjoyed the descriptions of her and her family, both in Barbados and in the East End and I wish that the story arc had con... morecentrated more on her. One thing about her really grated on me [SPOILER] I found the heavily signposted dramatic reveal of her parentage to be hammy and completely unnecessary. It seemed almost wedged in at the end. I suppose it could be argued to contribute to the book's overall theme of power - May's "father" taking all the power away from her mother - but it seemed pointless to me. I didn't like the other main character - Evangeline Nettlefold, plump spinster friend of Wallis Simpson. I think she was supposed to appear sweet on the outside with a nasty streak, but I just found her to be very inconsistent. I wanted to like her - a gaffe-prone food-a-holic who had, through circumstances out of her control, found herself utterly powerless. As the book progressed, however, the author kept slipping in unpleasant details about her, which didn't really gel with her prior descriptions and in the end I found her character to be a confusing jumble. Overall this book was a okay light read, but sadly one that was riddled with clichés and inconsistencies. I wouldn't read it again, nor would I rush out and buy any of the author's other works.
review 2: This book was trying to do too much. To be honest, I continued to read it to see what else the author would toss into the story. The plot included:A mom committing suicideCommunistsFascistsA mom having a strokeHitlerBlackshirts Children used to target Jewish homes with graffiti A mom having an affairA father molesting his daughterGentile and Jew tensionsFemale chauffeur A mom dying in prison serving time as a suffragette 1936 Berlin OlympicsDiscrimination against Jews Lesbianism A father drowning two of his unwanted childrenDiscrimination against the elderly Society leaders in London from the 1930sA child from an affair between a Scottish woman and Indian royal manVirginia WoolfBritish MPs and other government leaders of the 1930sOh, and the abdication crisisThings were very simplistic. With so much going on there was no true character development. We are told several times how great the heroine was so we knew that and knew we were supposed to be happy at the end that her romance bloomed with her chosen beau. less

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