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The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp

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Divia
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The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp

Post by Divia » Sun November 28th, 2010, 5:00 pm

Mathilde Kschessinka is a ballerina during the time of Nickolas II(the last tsar). She is an unforgiving character who doesn't care what the reader thinks. She acknowledges that some maybe offended by what she had done, but that isn't her problem. At times this can be grating on the reader, but I found it charming in a strange way.

Mathilde is the daughter of a great dancer, so it was her destiny to become a dancer as well. However, she makes some poor choices that brings shame to her family, but she doesn't care. Mathilde has money and fame. She tries hard to catch the attention of Nickolas, and soon they become lovers. Mathilde is genuinely in love with Niki(or so I believe). However, she doesn't appear to be as in love with the other men in her life. They are used as pieces in her great game of chess. Things seem to be going well in Mathilde's life until Niki marries that horrible German princess who can only produce baby girls.

What I really enjoyed was the details of Russian court. I thought the author did a great job of capturing the time period. The reader is thrown into the lavish lifestyles of the Russian royalty. What I didn't like(and why I gave it three stars) was there is no dialogue in the book. I'm a lover of dialogue(though I know others may not agree with me) and I think it helps set the tone of the novel. In this book we have the narrator rambling on and on at times about things I didn't need to know or care about. One example of this is when Mathilde is rattling off all the names that the newly crown tsar is known by. At the end she says(paraphrasing) "it would have been easier to list the names he was not known as." That's the type of stuff that feels like nails on a chalkboard to me. It felt the like the great information dump that could have been avoided if the editor had said no. To be fair though, other readers may not say that such information adds to the character and her personality. I can see that argument.

Overall, it was a good book. I am glad I read it, but I wish it had been written differently. Others may disagree, but that's OK.
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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Sun November 28th, 2010, 6:09 pm

Tely read this as well and it didn't really rock her world. Someone at Goodreads wasn't too thrilled with said review either.
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Susan
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Post by Susan » Sun November 28th, 2010, 7:33 pm

No dialogue!?!? I have a biography of Mathilde languishing on a shelf.
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Divia
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Post by Divia » Sun November 28th, 2010, 7:54 pm

No, hardly any. Except for the occasional

This is your son
He looks like me.

Or something to that effect.

Its a tab bit annoying for me because I want Russian HF to gain in popularity. I dont think this is going to help. :(
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Telynor
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Post by Telynor » Thu December 2nd, 2010, 5:29 pm

No, it's not. I guess what really ruined the book for me was the huge liberty that the author takes with Niki and Mathilde's relationship -- it was just so unlikely, and out of character for him, and then the author kept twisting that particular angle right up til the end of the book -- well, it didn't take long for me to start muttering "Bullsh*t!" I don't mind authors tweaking history a little, but when it starts to get out of hand -- well, there the end of it. The biography by Corrine Hall is very good, however.

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Susan
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Post by Susan » Thu December 2nd, 2010, 11:34 pm

[quote=""Telynor""]The biography by Corrine Hall is very good, however.[/quote]

Besides the biography of Mathilde, Coryne Hall also wrote an excellent biography of Nicholas II's mother called Little Mother of Russia. Hall certainly knows her Russian stuff.
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Telynor
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Post by Telynor » Sun December 5th, 2010, 3:35 am

[quote=""Susan""]Besides the biography of Mathilde, Coryne Hall also wrote an excellent biography of Nicholas II's mother called Little Mother of Russia. Hall certainly knows her Russian stuff.[/quote]

Yes she does! I really enjoyed the biography about Marie Feodorovna; Hall has also helped to write Once a Grand Duchess, about Nicholas II's sister, Xenia Alexandrovna. Greg King is another excellent author about the Romanovs, his bio of Alexandra Feodorovna helps to really get an insight as to how and why Alexandra behaved as she did -- it's called The Last Empress.

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