Tags

, , ,

‘Tsarina’ by Ellen Alpsten is not at all what I expected. The book is about Catherine Alexeyevna who was the first woman to rule Russia and was the second wife of Peter the Great (aka Not Catherine the Great) I thought hey I want to know more about this person.

This book has SO many issues that I don’t even know where to start.
You are mixing fact with fiction which at times and in other books works very well but not here. Since not much is known about Catherine’s childhood the author takes liberties which really do not work.

The book is full of sex, violence, gore…. I wanted to know more about her time ruling which really we see nothing of. In fact, at almost 500 pages this book needed to be trimmed.

Some examples:

-This book makes Marta (as she’s known) sound a lot more modern (as well as her attitude) then she should during this time period in 1700.

-We are told she’s smart but trusts a guy who clearly wants her in bed and almost ends up in a whorehouse? Yet she’s so smart?

-Now let’s talk about all the sex scenes. All the men want to have sex with her we get it. The author also seems to have an obsession with breasts because they pop up a lot.

-I do not need a detailed rape scene.

-I do not need a sex scene with the pastor’s son that I laughed out loud at how awful it was written.

-This book is also very wordy. For example how she soaked up all this information like a sponge. Like the sponge, she had seen in her bath hours before.

-Now because of this modern feel of this character I joked that all that was missing was a lesbian sex scene. Well, guess what popped up after page 100. Yup, a lesbian scene out of nowhere.

-BUT that’s not the best part. Its an incest lesbian sex scene. And that’s when I put the book away.

I could go on and on but this book does the real Catherine no favors at all.

Maybe a better editor could have saved this book but it’s not worth it.

Who would have thought that the wiki page had more and better info?

But mark my words this book is going to be a ‘best seller’