Helpful Score: 2
I think a friend recommended the book to me and I thought it sounded interesting. Carolly Erickson was very new to me and I think I might just look into other books by her. She gives this feel that she isn't the one that is writing but rather Queen Mary Antoinette. It really feels like the Queens diary.
You get to experience life through Marie Antoinette's eyes as a young girl before her betrothal to Prince Louis (later King Louis the VXI). We get to see her perspective on meeting Louis for the first time and his awkward social skills. She continually relates Louis inability to act as King along with the poor decisions being made on a regular basis, many things she contributes to unknowingly or without full understanding. You do get the impression that as young as she was, she didn't understand the predicament she had gotten herself into until it was too late.
I can't say I knew much about Marie Antoinette before I started reading this book, or her children, except that she was beheaded by the guillotine. Because of my lack of knowledge I read up on her, her son, the downfall of her and her husbands reign and the time leading up to their deaths.
No one can say that they were a good ruling monarchy. In fact, from everything you read you begin to realize that Louis was a very poor monarch and Marie Antoinette pretty much acted the part of a teenager having fun and partying and carrying on. While Louis continued to make poor decisions, in Marie Antoinette's later years she started to realize the problems going on in their monarch and tried to her limited ability to do something but having little experience and next to no allies, there was little she could do.
I think the book accurately accomplishes portraying this fact. While you know what is going to happen to Marie Antoinette you still have a sense of excitement and hope at all the escape attempts and the promises made by Count Fersen (a real life love) to try their best to help her and her children. There are so many moments that really pulled a few tears for me, so of them sad life events and others just the bitter sweet finality of history.
While everything written in this "diary" is not true, it seems that Carolly Erickson did her best to portray Marie Antoinette's world and entries with as much true facts as possible. And while some characters are made up to add something to the story, a lot of the people in the story were actual people in Marie Antoinette's life.
This book is well worth the time it takes to read it.
You get to experience life through Marie Antoinette's eyes as a young girl before her betrothal to Prince Louis (later King Louis the VXI). We get to see her perspective on meeting Louis for the first time and his awkward social skills. She continually relates Louis inability to act as King along with the poor decisions being made on a regular basis, many things she contributes to unknowingly or without full understanding. You do get the impression that as young as she was, she didn't understand the predicament she had gotten herself into until it was too late.
I can't say I knew much about Marie Antoinette before I started reading this book, or her children, except that she was beheaded by the guillotine. Because of my lack of knowledge I read up on her, her son, the downfall of her and her husbands reign and the time leading up to their deaths.
No one can say that they were a good ruling monarchy. In fact, from everything you read you begin to realize that Louis was a very poor monarch and Marie Antoinette pretty much acted the part of a teenager having fun and partying and carrying on. While Louis continued to make poor decisions, in Marie Antoinette's later years she started to realize the problems going on in their monarch and tried to her limited ability to do something but having little experience and next to no allies, there was little she could do.
I think the book accurately accomplishes portraying this fact. While you know what is going to happen to Marie Antoinette you still have a sense of excitement and hope at all the escape attempts and the promises made by Count Fersen (a real life love) to try their best to help her and her children. There are so many moments that really pulled a few tears for me, so of them sad life events and others just the bitter sweet finality of history.
While everything written in this "diary" is not true, it seems that Carolly Erickson did her best to portray Marie Antoinette's world and entries with as much true facts as possible. And while some characters are made up to add something to the story, a lot of the people in the story were actual people in Marie Antoinette's life.
This book is well worth the time it takes to read it.
