Between birthdays, vacation, hanging by the pool and drooling over the new Stampin UP! catalog, it has been a real struggle to carve out time to read. But, since I so enjoy reading, I've worked hard to make it happen. My latest accomplishment has been to finish reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.
Another historical novel, this story focuses on the Boleyn family and their rise to power during King Henry the VIII reign. She focuses in on the two Boleyn girls and their competition for the greatest prize...the attention of the a king.
I found the story rich in detail and the characters were nicely developed. The story itself dragged at times. I'm not sure if that is so much the fault of the author or the fact that her story required it in order to be somewhat accurate to the time she was writing about. It may also have been that I had refreshed my memory with the history of the time by sneaking a peek at a Wikipedia entry for this time in history and knew what the sequence of events was andI was thus antsy for the story to move along a bit faster. Lordy, what did we do before Wikipedia? It is like the cliff notes for all things we should have learned in high school but either forgot or weren't paying attention to.
Regardless, I found the book to be a worthy read if you appreciate historical fiction and enjoy this time in history. It is a long book, and has taken me pretty much the entire three weeks alllotted by the library to finish it.
I found it interesting that politics haven't really changed all that much over time: you scratch my back, and I'll find a spot for you in my administration. Ok, so back then they weren't back scratcing (wink wink) but favors were exchanged back and forth. It doesn't matter which side of the political coin you prefer, there will always be some secret handshaking going on behind closed doors. Some things just never change, eh?
Ah, but I'll get off my soapbox and back to making my wish list for stamp stuff that I simply MUST have. Oh my, I can indeed switch gears quickly can't I?
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