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Title: Main Character Too Awful to Get Over
Review: I don't often review historical fiction, but I am a fan of Philippa Gregory's other books. I think she is a decent writer, and has brought many historical characters to life. But like many others reviewers here, I really despised this book, and almost didn't make it through. I kept plowing along, hoping beyond hope that some redeeming feature would surface in Beatrice, but it never did. And I didn't feel that her background and love of Wideacre sufficiently explained the awfulness of her deeds, so I was just left feeling like I was reading the biography of a sociopath. Which is not much fun. Maybe if the book had been positioned as that, I would have felt differently about it.So I am firmly in the camp with those reviewers that felt Beatrice was just too disgusting and awful to devote an entire book too, and that the elegant book structure and prose didn't make up for it.
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