Book Reviews: The White Queen & The Red Queen

Title: The White Queen
Author: Philippa Gregory
Published: 2009, Touchstone
Rating: 4/5

Elizabeth Woodville catches the eye of Edward IV, a King who is not yet secure on his throne, and never will be. The War of the Roses rages throughout their reign. Family betrayal and forgiveness makes the white roses of York red with blood. Elizabeth is desperate for peace but also wants revenge against those that have taken her family and her sons' inheritances. Elizabeth's strong and haunting voice tells the story of her greatest joy and tragedy as the mother of the lost Princes in the Tower. Gregory's descriptive and grounding scenes will bring her readers to court, the battlefield, sanctuary, and the reunion of a mother and her son.

Title: The Red Queen
Author: Philippa Gregory
Published: 2010, Touchstone
Rating: 5/5

At the age of 9, Margaret Beaufort had a "saint's knees" from praying too much and wanted nothing more than to be like her idol, Joan of Arc. At the age of 12, she is married to Edmund Tudor and soon finds herself a pregnant widow. Her only child becomes her greatest love. She will do anything to keep him safe. She will do anything to give her son his true inheritance: the throne of England. From the voice of small child to that of a wise and cunning adult, Gregory brings Margaret to life. With England in discord between the warring houses, Margaret has everything to gain for herself and her child from God, or perhaps, veiled ambition.

Being Released in October 2011!

"The Lady of the Rivers", a novel about Elizabeth Woodville's mother, Jacquetta.

Available at Amazon.com

Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

Title: The Other Boleyn Girl

Author: Philippa Gregory

Published: Touchstone, 2004

Rating: 3.5/5

Gregory has fully mastered giving a voice to her character and pulling her readers into the Tudor time era, the enormous liberties she has taken with historical events did her novel no credit. If a reader was to approach “The Other Boleyn Girl” purely has a work of fiction, they might readily enjoy this novel. Those that have prior education on the Tudor era might have a harder time enjoying this book.

Mary Boleyn, at the tender age of 15, is forced to cuckold her husband, William Carey, by becoming the mistress of Henry VIII. Forced to accept her fate for the advancement of her family, she bears the King a daughter and then a son. While she labors in childbirth her sister, Anne, steals the attentions of the King. Weak with lust and love the King breaks away from the Church of Rome in his will to marry Anne.

While I applaud Gregory for telling her interpretation of the life of Mary Boleyn, her distorted representation of Anne Boleyn is slanderous. While Anne Boleyn did indeed wish for Katherine of Aragon’s death and treated Mary Tudor in a horrendous manner, she never did seek custody of her sister’s son. For that matter, Henry Carey, the son of Mary Boleyn, was more than likely not the son of Henry VIII. Nor did she commit incest with her brother, which is implied in several scenes throughout the novel.

I admire Gregory’s ability to weave the “what if?” into her novels but I have enjoyed this work less than her others. I am not saying this is a poorly written novel; on the contrary, it is a well written story if you only approach as a story. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend a historical fiction novel about Mary Boleyn that follows historical events more accurately, because there is none.

Little is known about the life of Mary Boleyn. It is true she was raised in France, married Will Carey, and was mistress to the King, had a daughter and son, and married a man named William Stafford for love. Most of her life is a gap lost in history. That is why I applaud Gregory for choosing Mary Boleyn as the subject for this novel. It is the extensive liberties she took to tell Mary’s story that bothers this reader. 

Book Review: Catalyst

Title: Catalyst

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Published: 2002, Penguin Books

Rating: 4/5

Kate Malone has two personalities: good Kate and bad Kate. On the outside she is the smiling, hardworking daughter of a minister who sees to her family’s needs in place of her dead mother. Then there is bad Kate on the inside, the one who views her world partly as a nuisance and herself as a slight bitch. Kate is sure she is going to get into MIT and that her world is smooth sailing after she gets an acceptance letter.

Yeah, right.

The Litchs’ house burns down and Kate is forced to share her room with her childhood nemesis and Teri’s baby brother, Mikey. Unbeknownst to the football players and cheerleaders who heckle Teri, her life has been a living hell. Carefully hidden in her private world, Teri has shouldered more hurt and responsibility than all the 4,000 + students in her school.

Good Kate and bad Kate melt into one as her relationship with Teri evolves and she learns the truth about Mikey's parentage. 

Anderson's sarcastic and quirky style created yet another fantastic novel. With realistic teen struggles, young readers will be able to identify with Anderson’s characters. Although, they may like to seem invincible, all adolescents know, they are riddled with faults like any other human.  

Book Review: Horse Tales from Heaven

Title: Horse Tales from Heaven

Author: Rebecca E. Ondov

Published: 2010 Harvest House Publishers

Rating: 5/5

In this memoir written through a collection of short stories, Ondov shares her life working with horses and humans on pack trips. Ondav’s memoir is also a devotional work of art as well where her relationship with god manifests through her relationship with horses. Her rich descriptions ground the reader in the breathless landscape of the west. Strong images will form in the readers’ minds as they see a foal born and another horse tragically die from an accident. This is one of those rare books where after every chapter, the reader is forced to sit and reflect upon their own life. This novel is a must read for anyone who honestly believes horses have changed their spirit and relationship with god.

Personal Side Story: I read this novel on my way home on the airplane from LA after my interview. Although I am not Christian, I understood Ondav’s relationship with God and how she often felt him around her when she was with horses. As a spiritual person, I believe horses have always influenced my life and helped mold who I am. Stories about horses made me want to be a writer. Being a writer makes me want to explore the world of horses and everything connected to them for the rest of my life. This makes me want to write about them. This is one of the many reasons I am determined to go to Japan and experience the culture and the horses. While I feel prepared to teach English and face the challenges of being a gaijin (foreigner), I am not sure if I feel prepared to write the novels. Why? I am not sure if I can do justice to the spirit of the horse sometimes in my writing. All I can hope is some of my future non-horsey readers will come to respect the horse through my writing. 

Book Review: Wintergirls

Title: Wintergirls
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Published: Viking Juvenile, 2009
Rating: 5/5

Unable to live and unable to die Lia is frozen. With the death of her former childhood friend Lia's already self-destructive actions and mental state plummets into freezing conditions. Anderson's vivid and poetic writing will make her readers feel the crippling disgust Lia feels every time she eats, every time she counts a calorie and every time she cuts. Unable to see how much her actions are hurting her perplexed family, Lia drags them down until she touches the bottom of her icy cage. Anderson's complex characters and beautifully disturbing realism will bring her readers to the tragic reality of Lia's mind.

Book Review: Water for Elephants

Title: Water for Elephants
Author: Sara Gruen
Published: 2006, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Rating: 5/5

During the Great Depression, a young man who seems to have lost everything all of sudden has a reason to live when he falls in love with a married circus performer. Jacob Jankowski and Marlena soon finds themselves threatened with the darker side of show business from her husband and his henchmen. Researched to the hilt, Gruen pulls her readers into the world of the old-time circus where men worked for little and animals hoped for kindness. Gruen builds the tension with each page and readers will not be disappointed with the explosive climax.

Book Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor

Title: The Housekeeper and the Professor
Author: Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)
Published: 2003 in Japan, 2009 in America, Picador Publishing
Rating: 5/5


Ogawa created a world of nameless characters, except for the nickname of the housekeeper's son, "Root". Although, the story is told in first person through the intimate thoughts of the housekeeper, Ogawa keeps her readers at bay outside of the intimate circle of characters. The effect is successful as the reader is unable to completely inhabit the three main characters' sphere of life. Ogawa's ability to create deep, dimensional characters allows her readers to accept their nameless identities. The story itself is episodic and bittersweet about how friendship and loyalty can come in unexpected ways. The deep impressions such events have on humans is captured in the spirit of Ogawa's story. Ogawa's subtle writing style will leave her readers reflecting on human psychology as her characters strike a chord in each reader’s view of humanity.