The Romanov Bride - Robert Alexander

the romanov bride
robert alexander
c. 2008
301 pages
completed 2/21/2010

read for: tbr challenge, year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

I know that when you get right down to it people are not that easy to kill.

Switching back and forth between two points of view, this is the story of the last years of Tsarist Russia. Ella, Grand Duchess of Russia and sister to the Tsarista, lives through the bloody revolution as she becomes closer and closer to God, eventually taking the veil and becoming an Abbess and founding a Russian Orthodox convent devoted to charity. Pavel, a poor Russian peasant whose wife and unborn child were killed on Bloody Sunday, lives through the bloody revolution in a cloud of rage with a need for revenge, becoming an important member of the Revolutionaries. Eventually, their paths will meet.

I thought this was a decent read. I knew nothing about Grand Duchess Elisabeth before reading this. Most of what I know about the Romanovs is about Nicholas and Alexandra and their children, not any of their other relatives. She was pretty impressive. Once her husband was killed, I really enjoyed reading the chapters she narrated and hearing about how she left royal life and opened her convent and hospital.

While I thought it was a good idea to have the two narrators on extremely opposite sides of the revolution, I wasn't as engaged in the chapters narrated by Pavel. His character only rarely drew me in. I only became interested during the times when I saw a little humanity return to him, such as when he found the Minister's children after the Minister's house was bombed or during the times when his path crossed with the Grand Duchess. But the chapters in between, detailing his time as a revolutionary, were just not as engaging. And I wish we could have gotten a little more detail about how he ended up where he did.

I also was occasionally a little put off by some odd turns of phrase throughout the book. Some of it I chalked up to typos. There was definitely more than once that I noticed some odd grammar choices and some weird sentence structure. Things like that can easily pull me out of a story.

Not bad, but not my favorite either.

3/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

The Romanov Bride
Bloody Sunday
St. Petersburg, Russia 1905

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

anna karenina
leo tolstoy
c. 1877
817 pages
completed 12/10/2009

read for: comp lit 211, 100 greatest novels, 1001 books, penguin classics

*may contain spoilers*

Anna Karenina is a story of a woman, unhappy in her marriage, who seeks love elsewhere with disastrous results. As a counterpoint, this is also telling the love stories, whether tragic or joyful, of other people in Anna's life.

I have been planning on reading this for some time, but just couldn't get around to it. Thankfully school, albeit a really terrible Lit class taught by someone I have nicknamed "Dr. Butthead," has forced me to read it. It's a little daunting, at 817 pages, but is actually a pretty steady read. As Rory Gilmore said, Tolstoy wrote for the masses. So it's not filled with prose that's attempting to be overly poetic and fancy. It's plain and simple which makes for an easy and compelling read.

I will be totally honest and say that I actually did NOT like Anna. I felt bad for her, obviously. She's in a loveless marriage with a man 20 years her senior in a time where that was not uncommon and there was not a whole lot you could do about it. But even so, I feel like she made a LOT of bad choices. Letting Vronsky come to her house, not divorcing Karenin when she had the chance. And it was hard to watch her throw her child away and cling so hard to Vronsky which in turn caused Vronsky to pull away from her. I always got a little bummed when the book switched back to her story line.

On the flip side, I enjoyed every page involving Levin and Kitty. Even when Levin was just chillin in his fields working with the muzhiks I was entertained. I enjoyed the ups and downs of their relationship, the little squabbles they had to work through and the personal quirks they had to get used to. It wasn't as loudly passionate as Anna and Vronsky; instead it was quiet and sweet. And I liked that.

4/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Moscow, Russia

The Tsarina's Daugter - Carolly Erickson

the tsarina's daughter
carolly erickson
c. 2008

336 pages
completed 6/23/2009

read for: what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The Tsarina's Daughter tells the story of the last of the Romanovs, Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children, Tsarovich Alexei and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, through the eyes of Tatiana. From the beginning we learn that Tatiana has managed to escape the fate of her family, as another woman took her place during the last of her family's days in Siberia, and now as an old woman living in Canada has decided to share her story.

I loved this book. LOVED IT. I don't know much about the Romanovs other than the very basic facts and what little truth can be gleaned from that one animated Anastasia movie (which is obviously not much). I didn't realize it had ended during the middle of World War I, or how really awful things were in parts of Russia. And it was surprising to read that all the turmoil was really only happening in parts of Russia, like St. Petersburg and Moscow. So it was an interesting read.

I liked that in this book it was Tatiana who got away, as opposed to Anastasia as the legend usually goes. I wonder what made the author make this unusual choice of daughters.

I found parts of this story extremely frustrating just because Nicholas and Alexandra were appalling in this book. They were so out of touch and so ineffective as rulers. I don't know if this is what they were really like, but the way they were portrayed in this book makes it almost impossible to sympathize with them.

One thing I was a bit dissatisfied with was the character of Constantin. I liked him so much, and we spent so much time exploring his relationship with Tatiana, that is seemed very sudden when their relationship ended. I liked Michael, too, but I was already invested in Constantin.

5/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Tsarskoye Selo St. Petersburg (Petrograd), Russia