Reviews for The young Victoria

The average rating for The young Victoria based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-06-09 00:00:00 Georgianna Somolik NetGalley provided a copy of the ePub in exchange for an honest review. Alison Plowden’s biography The Young Victoria is an insightful overview of the Queen’s early years. The events of her formative years certainly shaped her perspective on the issues of her long and respected reign. The author’s use of primary sources is brilliantly woven throughout this magnificently written read. The Young Victoria is a fast-paced page-turner that is certainly informative and revealing. Queen Victoria’s character, strength, determination and sense of duty are evident. Every library should have a copy. The Young Victoria is perfect as well for book clubs. A must read.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-01-10 00:00:00 Rene Soto I have to admit that I read this after seeing the movie "The Young Victoria," and enjoying it quite a bit. And also (a little) wondering how much of it was really true. This seems to be the book most of the movie is based on, and the answer is: More than you'd think. It seems many of major speeches in the movie can be drawn, almost verbatim, from letters of the period. As you'd expect much was glossed over, simplified, and made rosier, but the story seems to be very much the same. Consequently, it's an absorbing book. Victoria's life seems to be very well-documented, and Plowden is reasonably good about considering the source of information, rather than taking everything at face value. She also does a good job (for her American readers) of spelling out things that "every British schoolchild" learns, because odds are, we Americans missed out on that. My one quibble with the book didn't actually have to do with the book at all. I had a library copy, and someone else, as she was reading it, had actually WRITTEN ANNOTATIONS IN THE MARGIN and UNDERLINED PASSAGES. In a library book. This horrified me, but what made it even worse was that she wasn't at all an insightful reader. In fact she was a pretty dumb one. (As evidenced by the fact that fairly simple words, including "avuncular" and "sanguine" were underlined with question marks next to them.) The notations were also usually incredibly obvious: That John Conroy was trying to use Victoria to gain power, for example, or that Victoria's relationship with Melbourne caused some political issues for her later. Like I said, not the author's (or the publisher's) fault at all, but it put me in a bit of a sour mood when approaching the book.