The Other Boleyn Girl

Since moving to Phoenix and starting college, I've had little to no time for recreational reading. And that vexes my bookworm soul. I've always been a voracious reader — think weekly trips to the library to exchange a dozen books that were on loan for two weeks. Now, unfortunately, required reading for classes and keeping up with the news takes up most of my reading time, and reading 500-word articles and 140-character tweets has made it difficult to focus on 800-page novels.

Unless that 800-page novel is Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl.

Image via Wikipedia.org

To be perfectly honest, this one was a re-read for me. I read it back in high school along with a bunch of other historical fiction about the Tudor monarchy and loved it. History has always been a thing for me—I'm actually finishing up a minor in it—and the Tudors have always been a family I was interested in. I have no idea how long it took me to read it the first time, but this time I was through it in two weeks flat.

If you know your history, you already know the basic premise: Henry VIII, dissatisfied with Katherine of Aragon's childbearing abilities, sees Anne Boleyn and decides she will make a better broodmare. She's young, flirtatious, and has a witty mouth on her unlike submissive Queen Katherine, and Henry falls for her like a toddler for a shiny new toy. His divorce from Katherine and marriage to Anne mark the beginning of the split of the church of England from the Catholic church, but Anne has the same problems with conception and gestation as Katherine did before her. By now, Henry, father to two daughters from two mothers, is even more impatient for a son, so he plots to have her beheaded.

What makes this story different from other Tudor-Boleyn stories is that it is told entirely from the point of view of Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister who (according to Gregory) was actually the first Boleyn girl to catch Henry's eye. The story follows first Mary's rise and fall, then Anne's, ending with Anne's (rigged) trial for and conviction of witchcraft, adultery and incest. Anne's fall coincides with the rise of Jane Seymour, who would become Henry's third wife and the only wife to bear a son that survived infancy.

It is interesting to me that in the novel, Gregory has Anne darkly wishing that Jane might die upon the birthing bed for stealing her spotlight. If you know your history, you know that this is nearly what happened, as Jane died from postnatal complications less than two weeks after giving birth to Prince Edward.

You know how people say they can't seem to put a book down? That was true for this book both times I read it. It's completely engrossing. Gregory's writing is the perfect mix of modern syntax and middle English vocabulary so that you get a sense of the time period without feeling lost in the language. The plot moves very quickly—the book is divided by seasons, not chapters—and covers 10+ years without feeling as though you're reading two decades of history.