Book Review: Anastasia: The Last Grand Ducess (My Royal Story) by Carolyn Meyer

Amazon description

In 1914 Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of the Tsar, leads a privileged life in the grand palaces of Russia. The First World War and the Bolshevik revolution are just about to erupt. With the royal family arrested and exiled to Siberia, the life Anastasia knows is swept away forever. Spanning the last four years of Anastasia's life, My Royal Story offers a fascinating insight into her life.

Review

The diary starts when Anastasia is thirteen and enjoying a life of luxury as a Grand Duchess. She is the joker of the family and is always looking for ways to make people laugh. I thought the diary bought her to life well as a fun loving girl growing up in early twentieth century Russia with her thoughts and feelings told clearly. It was easy to relate to and sympathise with Anastasia and get inside her world as the book progressed.The beginning the diary is happy but when Russia become involved in WW1, Anastasia's life becomes harder and sadder as her privileges are taken away. I really liked the distinction that can be seen between these two periods of time and thought the author handled Anastasia's tragic fate very well.

What I liked about the diary format was that it showed that despite being a Grand Duchess, Anastasisa and her siblings had lots of fun escapades, some imagined by the author and others historically documented. There are the typical complaints from a tween and later on teen girl about school work and dreams of a coming out party fit for a Princess that provide a reminder that Anastasia had the same thoughts and feelings as any other teenager commonly experiences whilst growing up.

I read this book almost straight after Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap, which I loved, and I think that this affected my reading experience because it portrayed Anastasia in a more naive and immature way than in Anastasia's Secret. I also felt that she wasn't as complex a character even though I liked her distinctive  personality filled voice in the diary.

Whilst offering a fascinating insight into the life of the Romonov family, I found it was written in simpler language than other books in the My Story series and this was a bit of a disappointment. Having found out a lot about the Romonov family before, the special bond and closeness that they had especially amongst Anastasia's sisters didn't have the same effect on me as the first time I read about it. Though, this shouldn't be a concern for those who haven't learnt much about Anastasia and the Romonovs before.

One of my favourite parts was the detailed epilogue which included historical notes, the family tree, a glossary of characters in the Romonov household, information about the Russian language and a section on the Russian calendar. This back section was a lovely addition to the story and was very helpful.

Despite some of the pitfalls, I still enjoyed reading it and would particularly recommend it to middle grade readers who want to find out about the Romonov family through the first hand voice of Anastasia if they haven't read much about her before. If you're looking for a more developed YA book about Anastasia with a more mature narrator then I suggest Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap. You can read my review for that by clicking on the link.

Rating: 3 stars

Book Review: Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap

Goodreads description

Anastasia Romanov, life as the privileged daughter of Russia's last tsar is about to be torn apart by the bloodshed of revolution. Ousted from the imperial palace when the Bolsheviks seize control of the government, Anastasia and her family are exiled to Siberia. But even while the rebels debate the family's future with agonizing slowness and the threat to their lives grows more menacing, romance quietly blooms between Anastasia and Sasha, a sympathetic young guard she has known since childhood. But will the strength of their love be enough to save Anastasia from a violent death?

Review

Inspired by the mysteries that have long surrounded the last days of the Romanov family, Susanne Dunlap's new novel is a haunting vision of the life-and love story-of Russia's last princess.Anastasia’s Secret tells the tragic story of Russia’s last Grand Duchess through Anastasia’s eyes during her teenage years and the fall of the Imperial family. Anastasia and her sisters are used to luxury as the daughters of the Tsar but when World War One breaks out, the life that they have known begins to change beyond imagination...

Susanne Dunlap did a wonderful job of turning Anastasia from a figure in a history book to a lifelike teenage girl with the same emotions, hopes, aspirations and thoughts as other girls her age. I really liked how Anastasia felt that she was still being treated as the ‘baby’ of the family could be counted on to make everyone laugh when she was really growing into a intelligent young lady just like her sisters and needed to be thought of as that. This added a depth to her character that made her seem more lifelike to me and was key in the development of her character. I also loved the imagined secret romance with Sasha that was bought into the story because it was the perfect side plot to the story and was a distraction from Anastasia’s increasingly bleak and controlled life whilst also giving her the chance to grow up and experience love for the first time. Their relationship was complicated and it was often hard to tell what Sasha thought of Anastasia but it added an exciting and romantic element to the book to provide a distinction to other sad events. Sasha wasn’t my favourite of heroes and I felt there was something lacking about his character but nevertheless, it didn’t impact my enjoyment too much. Their relationship was also used as a useful window for learning more about the world of Russia outside the Palace walls, which Anastasia would otherwise have been unaware of. I found learning more about the country at the time very interesting and I’m glad this was added in.

I really liked how close Anastasia was to her sisters and younger brother. I particularly liked her relationship with her sister Marie (known as Mashka), who she shares a bedroom with Anastasia and I would have liked to have known what her character was thinking. As secondary characters, her sisters were very well developed and this is unusual in books with quite a large cast of characters but was key to this story because it helped me to care more about their fate. The Romanov family as a whole had a close and warm bond that I wouldn’t have imagined in such an important family when their father is busy with ruling the country. Even at the hardest times, they stayed faithful to each other and this is something to be admired.

It is clear that Susanne Dunlap spent a lot of time researching meticulously for Anastasia’s life is described in detail from servants to pets and as far as I know, these details are accurate. I learnt so much but it didn’t feel like it was overloaded in detail at all because everything was woven in a natural way into a rich tapestry. At the front of the book, there was a really helpful glossary of the characters names in the books explaining the Russian way of naming family members and their customs. I found myself using this throughout the book to make clear the sometimes confusing Russian names. This in depth look and intricate at the Romanov household and the story of the Romanov family fascinated me and made me want to learn more about them after I’d finished the book.

The inevitable ending of the story was well written and I was satisfied with it at first but another part of me would have liked to have seen it carried on further than the point it got up to just out of curiosity. Susanne Dunlap partly did this in the detailed epilogue explaining what happened afterwards with her musings about writing about such a talked about historical figure in the first person but it didn’t have the same effect as it would have been seeing it through Anastasia’s eyes. Though I have to admit that the story didn’t need this for the story is left on a note of insecure hope and the reader is left to imagine what Anastasia went through after that.

Anastasia’s Secret is a intriguing book that brings Anastasia Romanov’s teenage years to life blending fact with fiction to create an inevitably devastating and tragic story but also one brimming with romance and hope. The only thing that brings my rating down to 4.5 is that sometimes I found some parts of the bit lengthy and unnecessary.

Rating: 4.5 stars