Doomed Queen Anne-Carolyn Meyer

[Owl Johnson]

Once again, Carolyn Meyer goes back into the Tudor realm for her Young Royals series. This time though, her focus is on the antagonist of Mary, Bloody Mary and the mother of the protagonist from Beware Princess Elizabeth: Anne Boleyn in the book Doomed Queen Anne.

XXXXXXXX (Brief Synopsis)

Anne Boleyn has always been in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Mary Boleyn. However what Anne lacks in classic beauty, she makes up for with a razor sharp wit and skills in the fine art of flirting. This eventually catches the eye of the most powerful man in England; King Henry VIII who was once her sister's lover. But Anne won't be content with just being his mistress to be discarded once he gets bored. Oh no, she wants it all...and isn't afraid to destroy Henry's marriage and even the church of England to become Queen....

XXXXXXXX (What I Liked)

This is pretty much a tragic ugly ducking story. Once again, Ms. Meyer took a situation that anybody could relate to and worked with it in a way anyone could understand. Anne Boleyn's older sister is praised for her beauty while Anne is more or less pushed off to the side. You can see how this would put a sense of inferiority and jealousy into anyone whose parents focus their attention onto another sibling for whatever reason. Then Mary falls in love with a young courtier and they pledge to marry...but their plans are thwarted by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Wounded, Anne swears revenge on him first. This explains so much about her character's actions of Mary, Bloody Mary.

Anne is ambitious and isn't afraid to step on anyone to get what she wants. She knows of the fine arts of flirting and uses it to her advantage around Henry the VIII to keep him interested in chasing her. But there are layers to her that you don't see during Mary, Bloody Mary. You get her interactions with Nell the servant girl, the king, her baby daughter and her brother George. They humanize her somewhat but her hubris ends up being her fatal flaw. Also, they (namely Nell) aren't not afraid to call her out on her actions when they feel that she's doing something wrong.

Also, this is a good introduction to the tragedy as set up by Aristotle for young readers; of the noble hero who makes a tragic mistake (hamartia is the Greek term) and that ends up being their downfall. Everything is set in motion by Anne's actions and all you can do is watch.

Like before, there is a good sense of voice and historical detail is pretty accurate. You can tell Ms. Meyer did her research.

XXXXXXXX What I didn't Like

The biggest problem I had, actually, was the character of Anne. Sure, she's a little more fleshed out than in Mary, Bloody Mary but I still found it really difficult to retain any sympathy for her. I know that she's ultimately responsible for her own end but it was really hard to have any sympathy for her. Sure, she has some pretty nice interactions with her family/few friends and her pain is pretty realistic. However, the way Aristotle wrote of the best tragedy where the audience can see themselves in this character. This could be them and that's partially what hits the raw nerve and leads to the catharsis at the end. I didn't really get that from Anne. Yes, she can be ambitious and intelligent but there has to be something there the audience can gravitate towards.

On that note, I couldn't see why the other characters have relationships with Anne despite her being somewhat nasty to them. Nell, a lowly servant girl, is pretty much the only true friend Anne has (other than George) so why does she still hang around her? I mean Anne is her employer so she'd have nowhere else but why does she call Anne out on her actions despite being somewhat humble and quiet and knowing she could probably be beaten or lose her job? That must mean that there's something to Anne that makes her care somewhat for her friend but I can't really see it.

XXXXXXXXXX Overall rating:
While Ms. Meyer retains the voice style/attention to historical detail that she's famous for and gives a nice introduction to classic tragedy for young readers, the somewhat flat character of Anne was enough to take me right out of the story. I'll give it Bookshelf (my second lowest rating) because while it wasn't terrible, I probably wouldn't read it again in the near future.

Time for my question; have you read Doomed Queen Anne? What did you think of it?