a heavy price to pay for royalty in this compellingand truestory of Anastasia Romanov and fellow grand duchesses of Russia, from an awardwinning novelist.
Its summer inand the Romanovs are aboard the Standart, the Russian royal yacht, Tsar Nicholas, Tsaritsa Alexandra, their four daughters, and the youngest child, Tsarevitch Alexei, are sailing to Romania to meet Crown Prince Carol and his parents.
It seems like a fairy tale existence for the four grand duchesses, dressed in beautiful clothes, traveling from palace to palace, But its not.
Life inside the palace is far from a fairy tale, The girls younger brother suffers from an excruciatingly painful and deadly blood disease, and their parents have chosen to shield the Russian people from the severity of the future tsars condition.
The secrets and strain are hard on the family, and conditions are equally dire beyond the palace walls, Peasants chafe under the burden of extreme poverty and Tsar Nicholass leadership power weakens, And when the unthinkable happensGermany declares war on Russianothing in Anastasias world will ever be the same, I didn't have any intention of reading this book because I just finished sitelinkThe Lost Crown which was pretty good recently and fiction about the Romanovs is often awful.
But I also just finished Carolyn Meyer's book about Queen Victoria and found it enjoyable and a quick read so I decided to give this a go.
It was enjoyable. The writing was about as good as it gets for this sort of book YA historical fiction and it was obviously well researched.
I was interested mostly in the parts of the story before the Revolution since The Lost Crown covered the events after so thoroughly, and well.
This book covered both, with a longer section which was preRevolution,
I can only imagine how difficult it must be to write a book about an important historical event from the point of view of a young girl who was more than likely fairly uninformed about what was going on around her.
I liked Meyer's attempts to breach this by having Anastasia read her eldest sister Olga's secret diary, All the girls were prolific diarists, but their diaries were not private, The invention of Olga's secret diary made sense to deliver us important information since she is wildly regarded as the most sensitive sister to what was going on around them and it made sense for Anastasia to read it since she was the mischievous one.
It was a solid book, but often events were rushed, The thing I always appreciate about Meyer is her way of teaching history without being boring, I've read almost all her books because I never fail to learn something, This was no exception.
I've only seen theanimated film and now I know that it's pretty inaccurate, But I digress.
This book is more tell than show, but I still felt a connection to the characters and couldn't help wanting a different outcome, even though I knew how it ended.
Interesting, informative and engaging, I'd recommend this to anyone looking for an introduction to earlys Russia, I would've liked a map and a section on how much of the book actually happened, I'd certainly say I "liked it, " Teacher's note: This book ispages,
This book, written from the perspective of a teenage Anastasia looking back on her life, describes the world of the four Romanov sisters in earlythcentury imperial Russia, and depicts the tragic fall of the Romanov family as Russia falls prey to war, violence, and civil unrest.
The book which is based on real historical events begins with glittering descriptions of balls, visits from palace to palace, and other aspects of Romanov life.
The Russian people love Tsar Nicholas Romanov at least, according to Anastasia, and he and his family are venerated as the First Family of Russia.
However, darkness begins to creep in as Anastasia describes her brother Alexei's intense struggles with hemophilia, and her parents' efforts to hide his illness from the eyes of the nation they hope he will someday lead.
But, when the Russian Revolution hits, they find out that that's the least of their problems,
Honestly, while this book wasn't terrible, there wasn't a whole lot to recommend it, I'd already read another book for younger readers that Carolyn Meyer wrote on this exact same subject The Last Grand Duchess , part of the Royal Diaries series, and I honestly thought that one was better.
I think the main flaw of this book was its being written mostly in past tense, because it gives a settled and final feeling to something that should feel immediate and overwhelming to Anastasia and readers alike.
If she'd written it in present tense, where we get to experience each passing day with Anastasia and feel the pathos as she and her family slide toward tragedy, it would've felt much more emotionally resonant and compelling.
Anastasia Romanova was the youngest and the most wellknown daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, due to the fact of the many stories and speculation which suggested she had somehow managed to escape a grisly death.
The hope of her surviving that horrific day had lasted through generations, even I had hoped so when I first read about Anastasia as a child in elementary school, still young enough to expect only happy endings.
The story of Anastasia and even that of Anne Frank was so eye opening and yet so heartbreaking,
Its been years since Ive read something about Anastasia, so when I saw that Carolyn Meyer had written this book, I grabbed it.
Carolyn Meyer has a way of making history come alive through her writing, providing historical details through the eyes and ears of people who are often just seen as mundane names in a history book.
I knew what the outcome would be obviously, but still I felt emotional about the way these young women, their family, and loyal friends met an end that, in my opinion, was really unnecessary.
If youre a fan of the Romanov family and of the incredibly talented Carolyn Meyer, Anastasia and Her Sisters is a must read.
An historical fiction about the Romanovs Sign me in! I have a lot of strange reading habits, but one of the stranger ones that I just can't seem to shake no matter how hard I try is the occasional necessity to read something out of obligation to myyear old self.
And not just to 'give it a try, ' I felt totally obligated to finish this book, even though it was largely unremarkable,
To explain, we must time travel to the Silver Mesa Elementary Library,
Aaahh yes.
No, too far, now we're in the Babysitters' Club era, that's too far, closer, fourthish, fifthish gradethere we go,
This book has shiny pages,
It's sitelinkAnastasia: The Last Grand Duchess, Russia,, a Royal Diaries book, Opens book.
Do you hear that It's my whole life shifting, The kickoff of a severalyearslong historical fiction fixation, my obsession with Russia, my LIFELONG JOURNALING HABIT etc etc, In following I read every Royal Diaries and Dear America book I could get my hands on, loads of other historical fiction, and then, later, all of Carolyn Meyer's books, which scratched the same itch for a slightly older me history history history, even if, as novels of character and plot, they weren't the best.
Only to find out that Carolyn Meyer WROTE Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess, a fact that made my whole life make a little more sense in retrospect.
I distinctly remember telling one of my classmates to read this book, but "don't read the epilogue, it's so sad" and then they did and I was just like "what did I tell you, I said not to read the epilogue.
" I can actually physically feel the outofleftfield shock of "Anastasia and her family were led down to the basement, a chair was fetched for Alexei and for Alixandra, and then they were all shot.
" rolling through my body.
"Whatt"
ANYWAY Enough memoirizing, I have all the time to write a review and not much to say actually about Anastasia and her Sisters so, . . we ended up with a memoir chapter
Anastasia and her Sisters was standard Carolyn Meyer fare, History, clearly well researched, but there isn't much by way of real characterization that felt tangible or memorable, Held down by the lack of plot that happens when you just follow real people through nearly a decade of their life, coasting on the driving plot force of.
. . linear time Rising revolutionary tensions Threat of war Also obviously held down by the repetition and boringness of not only being a child in a country where things are happening but no one is telling you about it, and then being a teenager who is under house arrest.
Difficult parameters to make into a good novel, I'll give you that, but still, it could be done and this ain't it,
I've simply outgrown the Carolyn Meyer approach, My brain is advanced enough to take real history, so I wanted real history! I've read so many wonderful historical novels following fictional characters in extraordinary and real historical circumstances sitelinkCode Name Verity, sitelinkUnder a Painted Sky, sitelinkA DeathStruck Year, sitelinkSalt to the Sea, sitelinkA
Gentleman in Moscow oh my HEAVENS Gentleman in Moscow, a true goldstandard book, and these primerapproach firststepsintolearningaboutsomething type of books are not what I need anymore.
Meyer's youngYA take on this story was pretty on par with her Royal Diaries take on it from what I can remember of a book I read three times ten years ago, just more years covered which led to it feeling much less focused or vibrant, and with the additional feeling, constantly, that Olga Anastasia's oldest sister would have made a much more interesting protagonist/perspective.
We only are obsessed with Anastasia bc of the survival myth, Olga was really a much more interesting person from what is present in these books, even if only because she was older while the bulk of it was going on.
There's only so much "i'm a child and no one is letting me in on the secrets" that I, as a reader, can take before I'm just like "I'm not a child and I can read about whatever is going on from some other source than you, why am I bothering with this filtered version"
Basic takeaway: Meyer, if you want to write an Olga novel: do it.
I will read it. Yes, I may read it out of obligation but I will read it anyway and I'm sure it will be quite good,
Other basic takeaway: I'm going to end up on an endless research spiral any day now, or I'll live forever in a constant state of "about to ignore my friends and family for a month and dig into decades of Russian history for no reason" and that's just how my life will go.
Anyway, standard Carolyn Meyer fare, hopefully I've finally kicked the habit I've read SO MANY of her books and NONE of them are amazing and yet I KEPT GOING I was not impressed with this one.
It did not feel original and I didn't get anything new out of it it was simply another retelling, There was no hook, no fixed plot line, nothing, I finished the book and tried to remember what I'd read nothing stood out, The whole thing was lackluster for me, The only reason I gave it two is because I thought the idea was a good one and the writing itself was decent enough that I didn't give up on the book altogether.
My favorite thing about reading this historical novel was the countless inclusions of details that I had just read about in the nonfiction book sitelinkThe Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia.
Of course, Carolyn Meyer took liberties in crafting this story, but it was a really interesting look at the inner emotional lives of a family as they hurtle towards calamityparticularly of the four rapidlygrowing daughters.
hm
broke my heart
as a huge fan of the animated adaption of the true story, the movie anastasia has been my favorite for some time but i knew it was a happy ending portrayed and its hard to read a book and get attached to the characters knowing a tragedy will occur, it was a great read at first hard to get into because of how informative it was being but the author did good in managing a voice for anastasia and keeping it factual
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Carolyn Meyer