Alison Weir’s latest biography was published simultaneously in England as Mary Boleyn: ‘The Great and Infamous Whore’. This is not the first biography of Mary, but there are very few; her sister Anne usually gets all the attention.
The resurgence of interest in Mary does seem to be traceable to the publication of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl in 2004, and Showtime’s The Tudors (2007-2010) didn’t hurt either.
Weir gave an NPR interview titled ‘Great and Infamous Mary: The Other ‘Boleyn’ Girl back in October. Even better is an interview in the Riverfront Times (out of St. Louis), in which Weir talks about Mary’s reputation and how it transformed during her lifetime and after. Weir has great sympathy for Mary. She believes, for example, that Mary was an unwilling participant in both of her rumored affairs, with Francois I and with Henry VIII.
WEIR, Alison. Mary Boleyn: Mistress of Kings. 364p. reprods. appendix. bibliog. index. Ballantine. 2011. Tr $28. ISBN 978-0-345-52133-0. LC 2011029091.
Adult/High School–Teens who have read Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl (Touchstone, 2004) and want to learn more about the young woman who was mistress to King Henry VIII will find many answers in this book. As sister to the more famous (or rather, infamous) Anne Boleyn, second wife to Henry VIII, our knowledge of Mary’s relationship to the king is filled with rumor and innuendo from those present at the court. Weir sets out to unravel the mysteries behind Boleyn by following court gossip, public records, letters, and historical discussion. Many historians have speculated on her private life not only with King Henry, but also on rumors of her earlier affair with the French king, and the theory that one or more of her children were sired by King Henry. That Mary was able to escape the notoriety of her sister and retire to a quiet life with a husband she loved is remarkable for her time and station in life. Because of its exhaustive research and attention to minute detail, the book can be difficult to follow. Dedicated YAs will follow the intricate relationships and the author’s meandering trail of events and people. And while not many teens will read this volume from cover to cover, it is compelling enough to entice history readers, and the author provides a good sense of what it must have been like to live under the shadow of this idiosyncratic king. Recommend it to students who want all the details on the happenings in King Henry’s court, and more specifically on Mary and her family. Appendixes cover the lives of her children and include portraits thought to be of Mary and her second husband, William Carey.– Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA
Today’s review is an unfortunately rare example of historical fiction that specifically focuses on the early years of a most famous figure.Concentrating on Marie Antoinette’s adolescence, Juliet Grey strives to disperse the misconceptions that are associated with her. Becoming Marie Antoinette is the first in a projected trilogy. The second, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow, is expected in 2012.
GREY, Juliet. Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel. 480p. Ballantine. Aug. 2011. pap. $15. ISBN 978-0-345-52386-0. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–For anyone who has ever looked at a royal family and wanted to be a part of it, or who thought just how wonderful and romantic it would be to be a princess, this book is a wakeup call. Becoming Marie Antoinette tells Marie’s story from the moment she realizes, at age 10, that her mother, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, has only one thing in mind: getting her married to the dauphin of France, Louis-Auguste. In order to make this happen, Marie must undergo a complex “makeover,” including makeup, hair, teeth (she wore braces–18th-century braces!), and wardrobe in order to become acceptable to the French. The transformation works, and she is sent to France to be wed. Once there, Marie must navigate the spider web of intrigue and politics that makes up the French court. She can trust no one. Hoping to rely on the one person she thinks will be genuine, she sets out to develop a relationship with her husband, an equally young, trusting, and troubled teenager overwhelmed with the expectations placed upon him. This is a charming and eye-opening book about a young girl with the weight of her country on her shoulders traveling alone into the complexity of the adult political world. The incredible excesses of the French court described here set the stage for the revolution that is forthcoming. But first, readers get to know Marie for the very real human that she was. The author’s note and bibliography point to the historical background. Readers will anxiously await the rest of the trilogy.–Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA
Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s gorgeous debut novel is about an 18-year-old girl who ages out of the foster care system. She begins the book homeless on the streets of San Francisco. The thing that keeps her grounded, indeed the way she is comfortable communicating with the world, is the Victorian language of flowers. Appropriately, her name is Victoria. Victoria has a gift for flowers, and one of the novel’s immediate pleasures is watching her discover her talent working as the assistant to a florist.
The juxtaposition of this old-fashioned language and the urban setting of the novel is particularly touching. The language is a secret part of Victoria, it feels almost as if it has sheltered her. So she is taken aback when she realizes that the attractive flower-seller in the market speaks it too — they pass messages back and forth by giving each other significant flowers.
However, the meaning of each flower is not as straight-forward and trustworthy as she was taught as a young girl, something she learns while researching at the San Francisco Public Library.
Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh began mentoring foster kids when she was only 23. She recently established the Camellia Network, which supports 18-21 year-olds transitioning from foster care.
I believe this novel will appeal to a great variety of readers. Teens, obviously, but I also look forward to recommending this one to my faculty/staff bookgroup at school.
DIFFENBAUGH, Vanessa. The Language of Flowers. 308p. Ballantine. Aug. 2011. Tr $25. ISBN 978-0-345-52554-3. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Chapters that alternate between Victoria’s past as a foster child and present as a semi-homeless 18-year-old reveal secrets and unravel mysteries and create a narrative that is richly textured and hard to put down. As layers of meaning unfold and overlap, past and present collapse into stunning insight about Victoria and her life. She finds love, understanding, and acceptance with her foster mom, Elizabeth, at age 8, so something truly horrific must have occurred to explain why she is aging out of a group home 10 years later. In the present, the young woman finds her first job in a florist shop, putting to use the language of flowers that she learned from Elizabeth, and she finds a way to thrive and connect through it. She creates bouquets for sad men wanting to reconnect with daughters, lonely wives, and anxious brides. She learns to work with marriages that she knows will last so as to keep her business successful and in demand. It is ironic yet thoroughly believable that despite all her success with other people’s relationships, her own are disconnected and distant. Teens will relate to the book: there’s a push/pull romance, teen pregnancy, lots of feeling outcast and separate yet never descending into victimhood. On top of that, it’s smart, emotionally sophisticated, realistic, and beautifully written. Other books have explored the experiences of foster and abandoned youth, including Janet Fitch’s White Oleander (Little Brown, 2001) and Billie Letts’s Where the Heart Is (Warner, 1998). The Language of Flowers soars above them.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Juvenile Hall, CA
Today we review a high-interest novel, set squarely in the world of today’s teens. In fact, Exposure was inspired by the author’s own experience. Therese Fowler’s teen son was arrested for sexting. Fowler states firmly that this is not her family’s story exactly, but she knows of what she writes.
FOWLER, Therese. Exposure. 384p. Ballantine. 2011. Tr $25. ISBN 978-0-345-51553-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Fowler evokes shades of “Romeo and Juliet” with a contemporary social media twist: sexting and its consequences. Amelia Wilkes, 17, is not allowed to date, but she and 18-year-old Anthony Winter are having a secret, star-crossed romance that turns out to have tragic consequences when Harlan, Amelia’s strict father, discovers nude photos of Anthony on his daughter’s computer. Harlan’s immediate and complete rage at what he stubbornly insists is exploitation of his daughter spirals out of control as first Anthony and then Amelia are arrested in what explodes into a media circus. Kim, Anthony’s mom, is a teacher at the school both teens attend and she can’t muster the financial resources or political clout that drives Harlan’s near vendetta against her son. Although Fowler explores the adults’ motivations, she keeps the focus on Anthony and Amelia: believable, flawed characters who are in love and don’t see what they did as wrong. Their choices reflect the total desperation that denied love can bring. Teens who enjoy romance or who appreciate layered and complex family stories with a courtroom element á la Jodi Picoult will devour this.–Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
A fun combination of past and present today. First, Dracula’s Guest, a compilation of stories and excerpts from the past, which nicely presage modern stories. Hand this one to young readers who enjoyed Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Even the original fans of Twilight, now older and reading more sophisticated literature, should be persuaded to take a look.
Second, one of the blockbusters of the year — The Passage by Justin Cronin. So much has already been written about this first in a projected trilogy, nearly 800 pages long. As for potential teen interest, it is definitely there. Comparisons have been made to Stephen King’s The Stand, and teens are no strangers to the patience needed to wait out a trilogy. The movie version is already underway.
The Passage is a mix of character development and big action set pieces. The principle draw is the mystery of how the virals communicate and how Amy is connected to them. My favorite part of the book by far was set in the present, as Amy and her rescuer wait out the end of the world as we know it in an abandoned summer camp high in the mountains. Cronin’s writing in this section captures the hush and the dread, the approaching nostalgia and knowledge that this is probably the last peace either of these people will know. As a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, I was disappointed in later sections of the book, but I will definitely be returning for the next installments. The mystery is just too great.
It is worth noting that Cronin pays homage to Stoker’s Dracula by interspersing diary entries, newspaper articles, and other documents.
SIM, Michael, ed. Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories. 467p. Walker. 2010. pap. $17. ISBN 9780802719713. LC 2010004449.
Adult/High School–In 22 chronologically arranged short stories, excerpts, and semi-factual accounts, Sims relays 150 years of vampire tales, years during which a motley assortment of folktales and superstitions from Eastern Europe evolved into a hugely popular literary genre. The quality of these tales is intentionally varied–the inclusion of an excerpt from Varney the Vampyre, for example, reminds us that Charlaine Harris is not the first hack to write trashy vampire novels–as are the styles and themes. Nevertheless, certain generalizations are possible. One notices, for example, that authors again and again hide their vampires beneath layers of narrators, each of whom attests to the story’s truth. At the same time, one finds that almost uniformly the authors presume that their readers, their characters, or both are entirely ignorant of the vampiric tradition. This delicate balance between skeptical literary rationality and credulous superstitious belief results in vampires that are at once more myth-shrouded and more horrifyingly real than our postmodern age generally allows. For teens whose interest in vampires goes beyond forbidden romance, the menace, horror, sexuality, and death in this outstanding collection should leave them clamoring for more.–Mark Flowers, John Kennedy Library, Solano County, CA
CRONIN, Justin. The Passage. 784p. Ballantine. 2010. Tr $27. ISBN 978-0345504968. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–The epic begins with Amy, six years old when she is abandoned by her mother and kidnapped by a government group. She is taken to the mountains of Colorado where they have gathered several death-row inmates and infected them with a virus that results in superhuman strength, increased violent tendencies, and vampirelike symptoms. Amy has a different reaction to being infected. When the original 12 virals escape the compound, she and her rescuer hunker down in an abandoned summer camp, experiencing the end of the world as readers know it through the occasional newspaper report. Skip ahead to 92 A.V. and readers slowly get to know a colony of humans in California, protected by high walls and bright lights. During an expedition outside the walls, Peter is pursued by virals when Amy suddenly appears and saves him. Days later she arrives at the colony, coinciding with its collapse. A small, brave group (including Peter and Amy) flees east across post-apocalyptic America in a desperate attempt to find other survivors. The virals are monsters, completely unrelated to the romantic creatures so popular in recent literature. They do not drink the blood of their victims, they decimate them. They do not speak, they communicate soundlessly as they hunt the few remaining humans. By the end, it is clear that Amy and Peter are key to humanity’s survival. But how? Cronin’s confident writing, action-packed narrative, and focus on a small group of engaging survivors make most vampire fare seem insubstantial.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City
Being particularly fond of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation, Gounod’s opera (Romeo et Juliette), and Bernstein’s West Side Story, Anne Fortier’s Juliet was a must-read for me this year.
Fortier has written an entertaining mix of historical fiction, romance, and treasure hunt (à laDa Vinci Code). For teens who are into theater, enjoy a good love story, dream about traveling to Italy, or enjoy new versions of the classics, Juliet is a solid recommendation. After all, Romeo and Juliet are the ultimate teenaged, star-crossed lovers.
Adult/High School–Julie is shocked when her Aunt Rose dies and leaves everything to her twin sister and arch-rival, Janice. She is even more surprised when she secretly receives a letter sending her to Siena to retrieve a safe deposit box originally belonging to her mother. Julie hopes it will contain some kind of treasure, but instead it holds letters and texts that reveal the original 14th-century events upon which Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was based, as well as clues to finding a valuable statue. It turns out that Julie is actually Giulietta Tolomei, direct descendent of Romeo’s Juliet. From here, modern-day and past stories alternate chapters. Many people are trying to prevent Julie from finding the statue, not to mention learning the truth about her parents. And the search is complicated by attractive, intriguing Alessandro Salimbeni and his godmother, Eva Maria. They are relatives of Luciano Salimbeni, the man rumored to have killed Julie’s parents years before, and also descended from the original Salimbeni, an evil, powerful man responsible for the 14th-century tragedy. The Salimbenis are hoping for Julie’s help in negating the curse that seems to be on both of their houses. There is natural teen appeal here, and the author certainly maintains adequate pacing and suspense to keep her audience reading. The alternation between the past and present stories might slow down more reluctant readers, but fans of the play will have a great time putting the pieces together.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City
Connie Willis considers her World War II alternate history/time travel saga to be one book. She calls it Blackout-All Clear, even though Blackout was published in February and All Clear in October. So we decided to publish one review encompassing both.
While yes, both books are long (very long), there are teens out there who have no problem with that. In fact, they relish it. I’m sure you’ve experienced this phenomenon, especially among fantasy readers. I encountered it with The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Little Brown, 2005). In my library it was a popular among a specific group of friends, who all seemed inspired by the challenge implied by the helf of the book. They were happy to read it in hardcover, proudly lugging it around with their heavy textbooks, talking about it loudly.
The same was true of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind (DAW, 2007). I might be bringing this up mostly so I can gloat over the fact that the next installment of the Kingkiller Chronicles is finally on its way. Wise Man’s Fear is set for release by DAW on March 1, 2011. How excited are we??
Blackout-All Clear is more history than fantasy compared to the two titles just mentioned. And history is another genre whose avid readers are willing to tackle a longer book.
Willis’ novel To Say Nothing of the Dog won an Alex Award in 1998, and also involves an Oxford University time travel project. But it was much lighter in tone than the book(s) we present today:
WILLIS, Connie. Blackout. 491p. ISBN 978-0-553-80319-8.
––––. All Clear. 641p. ISBN 978-0-553-80767-7.
ea vol: Spectra/Ballantine. 2010. Tr $26. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–In Blackout, Oxford historians in 2060 use time travel to study momentous events firsthand. Polly, Mike, andEileen, three adventurous young historians, are heading back to the 20th century to study aspects of World War II. Polly is playing the role of shop girl during the Blitz. Eileen is serving as a nanny to observe displaced London children who were sent to the countryside to avoid the bombing. And Mike, well…he seems to have been dropped in the wrong destination, which could cause major problems for the time travelers. Readers are clued throughout the book that this expedition is not working out as planned. Drop sites are demolished, dates are wrong, and the historians are increasingly frustrated by the lack of communication from the future. Nevertheless, this is much less a time-travel tale than one of historical fiction. The three historians are constantly trying to place themselves in the known sequence of events, always fearing that they will somehow alter history. History buffs will love the inside look at England during the worst of the war, while casual readers may find themselves scurrying for more background information. It is essential to read Blackout first. In All Clear, unidentified historians from the future strive to get Polly, Mike, and Eileen out of the past, using a variety of names and guises. At times, several hundred pages separate one segment of a character’s story from the next. Although the combined books make for a lengthy, complex narrative, it is satisfying to see the stories come together in the end. All of this is accomplished with Willis’s trademark understated wit. Readers with an interest in World War II should love these books, but also try recommending it to teens who enjoy complex fictional narratives such as Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium trilogy.”–Diane Colson, New Port Richey Library, FL
Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.
