reaction: THAT ENDING, WHYYYYYYY
Note: I could totally see it coming, but I still hoped that the plotberg would be avoided, Spoiler: it was hit at full speed ahead,
: Russian history ranks highly among my favorite kinds of history, Lets be honest: some crazy shit happened in Russia, There are so many amazing stories to be told, As such, I was thrilled to hear about J, Nelle Patricks Tsarina. The fact that Patrick is actually a pseudonym for Jackson Pearce upped my excitement, since I really enjoyed Sisters Red, The Russia stuff is delightful and the writing solid, but Tsarina took more of a fantasy angle than I was really expecting,
Read the sitelinkfull review at sitelinkA Reader of Fictions, Really.stars. To see full review click sitelinkhere,
I imagine a conversation went like this when pitching this book:
Publisher: Well, Ms, Patrick the Russian Revolution idea is interesting, But we have to have something to compare it with,
Patrick: Why
Publisher: New trend in YA, Everything
has to be compared to something else,
Patrick: Like Hunger Games
Publisher: Waaay over done,
Patrick: Okay, what about Dr, Who
Publisher: Are you serious Dr, Who meets the Russian Revolution, That is even ridiculous for our company, Here, watch some TV Ill talk to you in a few hours,
Ten days later which equals ten minutes in publishing land,
Publisher: So, have you came up with a mesh up for us,
Patrick: Yes, uh, Material Girls
Publisher: Material Girls Is that that bad Hillary Duff knock off of Sense and Sensibility that takes place in LA and has her sister cast in it God, I love nepotism.
Patrick: Yep, that one,
Publisher: I love it,
Enter MJ
MJ: I dont love it,
To be fair, theres nothing involving Material Girls in the plot synopsis, The comparison is only mine to make, But if youve seen that movie, youre getting a good idea what Tsarina is about, Throw in a little Stockholm Syndrome, a McGuffin, and you got this book,
The only thing it really had in its favor is the concept and the setting,
However, the synopsis mentions the Romanovs, Other than a cameo at the beginning, you dont get any Romanovs, Instead, you get the Duff sisters wearing pretty dresses and in this book essentially causing the Romanovs deaths by being stupid,
But dont worry, theres a new boy in town,
Handsome Leo whos a brute for aboutpages of the book,
Yeah, I really have problems with Stockholm romances, Especially when the so called love of your life died about thirty pages ago, Really You know having a Stockholm romance already puts the book on shaky ground, That scene had me raging,
Though, given the fact that Natalya was already a frustrating character, a frustrating character who had little to no redeeming characteristics,
I really think that Patrick was trying for a riches to rags vibe with character development, But at the end, I didnt feel like I sensed any character development from this character, Shes still the same selfish twat like she was at the beginning of the novel, And I dont think her relationship with Leo The Stockholm Induced Love Interest helped,
However, sour characters and a romance that makes the early Disney princesss romances look develop has nothing on how the Russian Revolution is distorted in this book.
Ill be honest, Even though I had to do multiple projects and papers over the Russian Revolution, was coerced to reading Animal Farm, and watched the historically inaccurate animated film a dozen times in my youth, the subject matter can easily get confusing.
Patricks novel doesn t make it that much better,
I think part of it is that I couldnt sympathize for either side, I couldnt see their sides of things, The Whites were portrayed as being like the Duff sisters and the Reds were just portrayed as murderous fiends,
And then there are the mystics
Really
Like with the animated movie, this book decides to go with semievil mystics, Though Ill give it kudos for not having a zombieish Rasputin walking around, Just hisnever mind for spoilers,
To be honest, I think Rasputin and the mystics always sort of get a bad wrap when it comes to fiction about the Russian Revolution, Never mind, that he played really no role to the tsars downfall hes just an easy targetI don t think the beard helps, But I really dont see why such a big deal is made out of them when theres so many other historical figures to discuss,
I dont knowits just I feel like the history itself is interesting enough where parties dont need to be added or changed to the story,
And that mightve been the worst thing about this story,
The whole faberge egg plot really didnt work for me either, It really felt more or less like a McGuffin quest, The so called powerful object really wasnt even that powerful,
I dont even really know what it really did by the end of the book, Oh, I was told but I kept waiting for the stupid egg to show me the money
The book never did,
I think for people who are wanting to know more about the Revolution or even expecting a fun Anastasiaish themed novel, theyre probably going to wan to avoid this book.
I think the best way to describe Tsarina is that Nelle was playing with Russian Revolution era Barbies,
Possibly I am biased, because the author Jackson Pearce writing as J, Nelle Patrick was sitting across from me in my squashy office chair while she wrote this, I'm fond of both Jackson and that chair,
Possibly I am biased because we brainstormed about this book and The Dream Thieves as we loitered in my kitchen with the,cups of coffee who died to make both of these books possible.
Possibly I am biased because you always like books you saw being born on your living room floor,
It's possible.
But it's more possible that I really wanted something historical with a hint of magic something that didn't feel like an assignment something with a moose in it.
This is that book,
This is unpalatable
Also, if you don't believe me, believe Kirkus, anyway, because they gave it a starred review,
And I just think you'll like it, Saint Petersburg was a city of illusions,
Holy hell, I want to go to Russia now, I mean, I did before, But now I really want to go, This novel so beautifully captures the cities of St Petersburg and Moscow at the height of thecommunist revolution, It expertly blends the historical facts with elements of Russian mythology and sensitively portrays both sides of the revolution by allowing you to come to your own conclusions about which side is to blame if, in fact, either is.
We see angry poor men being driven into the ground by the hard labour they perform, while their employers sit in cosy, goldplated luxury, We see people being dragged from their homes and murdered by the aforementioned angry poor men for crimes they had no say in,
This novel asks that you think about one thing: It is not our fault where and into what circumstances we are born, We have no control over that, But are we to blame if we simply accept things the way they are without trying to change them
The author says in her note at the end: The Russian Revolution, truth be told, needs little to no fictionalization to be a fascinating time period, full of beauty and horror and wonder.
And I like how close to real events she has kept the framework of her story, how she weaves in the Romanov family, Grigori Rasputin and the imperial Faberge eggs I found this addition quite fascinating.
I couldn't put this wild tale of fact and fiction down,
I only realised recently just how important atmosphere is to a novel, It's not really something you consider outright when thinking about a book but I honestly believe it can make or break it, Consider your favourite books. Maybe they have an atmosphere of fastpaced, heartpounding, willtheyliveordie tension that drags you right into the centre of the story, Maybe there's a bittersweet sadness that makes you feel like you might burst into tears any second even at the happy parts of the book, Maybe it's a spinechilling creepiness, But, whatever, atmosphere is what takes you out of the real world and plants you in another, Worldbuilding is nothing without atmosphere, My point I am rarely so wholly absorbed into another place and time as I was with Tsarina,
Look at these quotes and tell me you can't feel the Russian air on your face and the excitement and terror of the revolution:
There were bridges from one to the next, and the canals were deep, maintained with stone walls that held the Neva River at bay.
But we divided ourselves with harsher lines than the land did: the rich and the poor, the merchants and the nobles, the Whites and the Reds, When the river would occasionally flood the canals and blur the lines between islands and districts, we would hastily fix it, tighten things, firm up the boundaries and make sure the illusion, the lie, the fantasy held.
There was no mistaking a Russian winter, It was a unique thing, a creature born and bred for Russian soil, one that sometimes brutalized the natives but often served as our secret weapon, Napoleons army was defeated not only by the Russian people, but by Russia herself,
It was lonely now, our houses islands amid broken seas of our old lives,
It is so beautifully written, Part survival story in some ways, part historical fantasy in others, Despite the way it starts with Natalya and Alexei declaring their love for one another, this is far from a mere romance, It is brutal, even more so because it is based in fact, You find yourself sympathising with both sides and hating both sides simultaneously, I love novels that can make you feel so many complex emotions,
I'm also not one for patriotism or nationalism I find myself nodding along with Virginia Woolf's "My country is the whole world" quote, . . but I found it very easy to get caught up in the passion Nataliya feels for her country, And I'm not even Russian! She has to make a decision whether to flee to France to escape the revolution or stay behind and risk everything to try and save her country, and I completely understood her desire not to abandon ship.
There's a certain ferocious passion that infuses this novel and I think that's why everything I may not usually agree with makes so much sense,
How could a city so full of people feel so void of souls
I was leaning towards five from very early with this book but I was just a little disappointed that the ending felt so rushed.
We'd been set up in a beautifully atmospheric novel with characters I really liked, only for it to feel tied up too quickly, It didn't ruin the book but I thought it could have been better, which is why my rating is four instead of five, But don't be put off, This is an excellent book that I would recommend to all fans of historical fiction, I enjoyed it a lot, One final quote:
“You said it wasnt your fault for being born rich any more than it was my fault for being born poor.
And youre right. But if we dont do anything to fix the world, if we just shrug and let children starve and soldiers die and people be treated like cattle , . . if we dont fix the world, Miss Kutepova, I believe it becomes our fault, ” sitelink blogspot. nl/
This story has a beautiful setting and interesting concept, I know from her previous work like Sister Red and Sweetly that the author knows how to write an engaging story, But despite the well crafted worldbuilding, I wasnt fully invested in the story and the problem lies with the main character Natalya,
”That wasnt foolish Natalya, That was love. Love hopes for happy endings, ”
Natalya is in love with Alexei Romanov, next in line to be ruler of Russia, It seems that they have a long history together and that is why he trusts her with a dangerous secret, Before he died, Rasputin poured his magic into a Faberge egg, This egg ensures their hold on Russia and their health, Until the egg is stolen in the middle of a riot from the Reds, They are tired of their bad treatment and poverty, so the royal family is captured and Natalya is in desperate need to find the egg, But she isnt the only one, Leo believes that he is capable of changing the owner of the egg in the hope to help his people, He kidnaps Natalya and her best friend Emilia and they travel to Moscow,
The worldbuilding was great, It felt like I was walking besides Natalya and I felt the tension when she sees her beloved city fall into the hands of the Reds, The setting was interesting too, The story behind the Romanov family and the questions about the survival of Anastasia are well incorporated, Its obvious that the author did her research on the matter, which made it all feel more realistic,
Natalya started out as a promising character, It wasnt hard to imagine her sadness when she discovers that Alexei is hold captive and her desperation to find the one thing that might save him and his family.
The only thing is, I couldnt connect with her, I wished I liked her more, but her sudden romance with Leo messed everything up, I just cant understand how she fell in love so fast, especially not in that situation, It almost felt like a betrayal of her love with Alexei,
Despite that, I quite liked Leo, He represented the other side of the story, He shows Natalya the reason behind their rebellion and he always came across as a good person, His character gave balance to the story and I like how it changed Natalya and her look on things, He has his reasons to find the egg an aspect that surprised me, I never thought there would be such a focus on magic,
Overall, a good book, but it wasnt mindblowing,
.