I read this for the Mardi Gras seasonal event and the badge is very pretty, but unfortunately I wish I had picked one of the other books. I love the concept, but unfortunately it was a miss for me.

There are far too many characters, all puddle-deep, and they each have a parade of trailing minor characters with their own convoluted plots and yet more off-screen characters from their back stories. I could barely keep track of them all, much less fully care about them.

The prose was serviceable but very repetitive. Characters' thoughts and feelings are explained over and over ad nauseam. We get the same scenes from multiple different perspectives, often with jolting head jumping.

It also feels a little politically regressive? Kind of like Wilkerson had a checklist of pretty lukewarm topics to shoehorn in, all handled with the clumsiness and cartoonishness of a soap opera. Weirdly it reminded me of pre-2020 DEI trainings designed to get a certain type of white women to recognize the very basic humanity of black women and woc. I wasn't surprised when I learned Jenna Bush picked it for her book club, I'll put it that way. 😂

Lastly, and this is more of a personal pet peeve, but this novel also commits the ultimate lit fic cardinal sin for me. Neat, interlocking plotlines that don't allow me to suspend disbelief. It's just predictable, unrealistic, immersion-breaking, tired! Blah.

”People don't like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.”

This was a great second book for Moist’s character! Loved the cameo of Angua and Carrot too. Terry Pratchett’s writing just works so well for me. It is so quick witted and the dry humor always gets me.

Ever since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated by how much nobility and royalty rely on matchmaking and arranged marriages to perpetuate themselves. I think I'm so drawn to these stories because women have more importance and agency in patriarchal societies where marriage is so important and fraught. The stakes are also higher when entire families, countries, and empires can be made or broken through one marriage. There's a tension between the personal and the political in every flirtation and engagement, which makes even failed romances and unhappy marriages more interesting to me.

Needless to say, I was delighted when I found this book. There's nothing methodologically groundbreaking happening here but it's a unique framing for a Victoria biography, one I've never seen before. Cadbury dedicates each chapter to a child or grandchild of Queen Victoria, her role in matchmaking for them, and the political and personal consequences of each courtship and marriage. Ultimately this book is serviceable, well-written historical nonfiction with well-drawn characters, but it's hampered by an overly ambitious scope.

I'm fairly familiar with this topic, having read some biographies of Victoria and being an inveterate Wikipedia browser of historical figures. However, Cadbury's extensive quotations from primary sources painted an insightful, vivid portrait of the personalities and relationships in Victoria's family. Cadbury's cogent analysis also brought into sharp focus the political backdrop and diplomatic machinations behind every match. It definitely enhanced my understanding of the broader international context during the Victorian period, which I'm lacking as someone who likes reading biographies and microhistories.

Initially I was fascinated to read the sections where Cadbury contrasts Victoria's matchmaking with the rise of anarchist attacks targeting royalty, and her anxiety about protecting her family from political violence in countries with less stable monarchies. At first it seemed an interesting and productive framing. But as the book wore on, Cadbury was forced to focus more on this aspect rather than the actual matchmaking. I personally think some of the lengthier sections towards the end should have been cut. For instance, there's a very abbreviated summary of the Russian Revolution that still felt too long and not fully integrated with the rest of the book. Ultimately I think she or her editor should have done more to combat the scope creep introduced by that element.

I still enjoyed it and learned a lot, though.