Monday, November 28, 2016

96:120 Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

A collection of mini-biographies of princesses through history that did not behave in what one might call "typical princess" fashion.  The book is divided into sections based on how the princesses deviated from the standard we think of and then each had a handful of biographies that fit into that heading.

I wanted to like this more than I did and in the beginning, I was really enjoying it.  I liked hearing about the Warrior Princesses who would not marry a man unless they could best them or charging into battle or running away from marriage to become a pirate.  Those seemed well-researched and if short, offered what felt like a good overall mini-biography.  As the book progressed through, it started feeling much more like a gossip magazine with just pulling out the juicy bits as much as possible, maybe with a few possible explanations thrown in but not expounded upon, and then giving entries with 1-2 paragraphs on other notable women that could go under the section titles.  The tone seemed to change a bit as well with the earlier princesses getting a more matter of fact tone and then it switching to a more "you know what I mean, wink wink" kind of tone as things progressed into the "scandalous" sections.  It felt like a juvenile way of handling the material.  In all, I just wasn't impressed and won't be looking further into this author.


Page count: 288p/24,837p ytd/273,987p lifetime

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