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Title: Dreadful Historical Romance
Review: The Other Boleyn Girl is overlong, filled with tedious and unnecessary descriptions of Henry VIII-era women's clothing, barely touches on the genuine religious background for the novel (indeed makes it seem that the principal reason for the break between England and the Church of Rome was because of the machinations of the Boleyns) and despite the title is more about Anne Boleyn and Henry than the Mary of the title. The narrative is simply heavy-handed. Mary seems to be everywhere anything important is happening or manages by chance to overhear important information or picks it up via weakly developed exposition. It's supposed to be a historical romance, but there's precious little genuine history and and not a lot of romance. Oh . . . and the ending takes 700-plus pages to get to, but it's all telegraphed by page 350 or so.
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