Book Review - The Other Boleyn Girl by Philppa Gregory

I picked up The Other Boleyn Girl the day before I left for vacation, thinking it would be a good airplane/beach read. It was all I hoped for and more. Not only was I thoroughly entertained by the steamy happenings of Henry the VIII’s court, impressed with Philippa Gergory’s deft writing style, and consumed with the Boleyn family and their endeavors, I have also become enthralled with England in the 1500s. I’ve found myself on my computer, combing sites like www.tudorhistory.org , www.englishhistory.net , and www.tudorplace.com , just to find out how historically accurate this novel is. What I’ve learned is that Henry and his six wives are fascinating, especially Anne Boleyn, her sister Mary and her brother George.
The novel focuses on the three of them. I won’t go into all the history, but here’s a rundown: before Anne and Henry ever go together, Henry and Mary were involved, and Henry allegedly fathered two of Mary’s children. In addition, George, who was a prominent member of Henry’s court, was (at the end of his life) accused both of incest with Anne, and of homosexuality. Nonetheless, Anne becomes Henry’s second queen. Unfortunately for Anne, the road she felt forced to go down in order to become queen is full of regret, and inevitably she is led down a much darker path. The joy of reading the novel isn’t in trying to figure out how it’s going to end, because most of us already know. Instead, it’s fun to read, in intimate detail, of how the Boleyns come to win everything at an incredible cost, and how they lose it all in agonizing turn of events. The book is told from Mary’s perspective, and she’s a sympathetic narrator. My research tells me that Mary did in fact have a reputation for being easy, and that Henry was not her only lover. But Gregory paints a picture of what life must have been like for Mary and other women like her, that as daughters their families afforded them no power nor choices, and that their only value was in capturing the hearts of important men. Mary and Anne were, according to Gregory, only obeying the wishes of their families.
It’s an interesting premise, and one that I doubt is often offered up in the history books.
At any rate, the book is really good, and I strongly recommend it.



Review by Laurel Osterkamp. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.