What do You think about The Last Princess: The Devoted Life Of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter (2008)?
This is going to sound sexist--and perhaps it is. But long experience of reading biographies and history and even fiction has brought me to the conclusion that while women can get inside mens' heads, it's the rare male writer who can really bring female characters to life.While Matthew Dennison can write well enough for a historian, and certainly he's done his research, Beatrice never springs to life here. He wants us to believe that she wasn't the dull little stay at home daughter in Queen Victoria's shadow, but his writing does nothing to change that image. She remains a two dimensional character.Perhaps this is because there is a dearth of materials on Beatrice. But what then was Dennison trying to do here?And yes, his way of abruptly announcing a major event and then going back and recounting what led to the event and doing so repeatedly is dreadfully annoying. And it's pretty poor storytelling....
—The Library Lady
This doesn't really count as "read", because I had to return it to the library unfinished. The style was beginning to irk me: the author had a tendency to assume that the reader knew the basic life story of Princess Beatrice, and that he was just adding to a basic knowledge. This lead to - for example - the chapter on her husband's death beginning with an anecdote that occurred two years after his death, which depended on the reader knowing the cause of death for it to make sense. I had assumed illness - later in the chapter, it seemed that he'd been killed on an expedition against the Ashanti in Africa. In about the last three paragraphs of the chapter, the author finally revealed that the cause of death was illness: Malaria contracted while on the Ashanti "expedition". But it was all written as though one of course knew all this.That said, it was unfortunate that I had to return it unfinished. I have a feeling that the most interesting period of Beatrice's life was yet to come.
—Heidi
I really didn't care for this book. It looks at the life of Queen Victoria's youngest child, Princess Beatrice and her "servitude" to her mother after the death of the Prince Consort. That "servitude" began when the child was four years old and continued throughout her mother's lifetime. There is so much repetition in the narrative that it had me skipping pages. It went on and on about the Queen's complete domination of her favorite daughter that I began to dislike both the Queen and Princess Beatrice. I am probably the minority opinion on this book but frankly, it bored me.
—Jill Hutchinson
