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Review: "Becoming Marie Antoinette" by Juliet Gray

From Goodreads:  Why must it be me? I wondered. When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?

Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon.

Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen.

My Thoughts:  This book was provided to me by NetGalley for review.  I have always felt sympathy for Marie Antoinette and felt like history has been pretty hard on her.   I was really looking forward to this book but I simply didn’t like it as much as I had expected to.  While I enjoyed the writing, I feel like the characters were not well-developed and the story was kind of boring for me.  It barely kept my interest until the end of the story and I probably won’t read any of the subsequent books in the series.  I have read biographies and other historical fiction novels about Marie Antoinette and I felt like this story followed the exact same formula them.  I kept waiting for something new and/or exciting and was let down.  This book is almost like reading a book version of the “Marie Antoinette” movie starring Kirsten Dunst (which was a terrible movie) and someone who hasn’t seen this movie or read anything about Marie Antoinette may really enjoy this book.  It just wasn’t for me.  2 ½ stars

Comments

  1. I've been seeing this book all over lately, and with all the hype I've been wanting to read it. I never actually saw the movie Marie Antoinette when it came it. I know it got awful reviews, but part of me still wants to see it

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