I'm still working through The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. Yes, I just said "working through" which is never the ideal way to describe the reading of a book, but I must say that it is an excellent choice of words on my part. Despite it's similarities to The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory in outside appearences (note the name and the author), it does not have any of the appeal of her earlier book. I realize that in my last post, I was comparing the two books, but I feel that after finishing more than half of The Other Queen, I have to reiterate my opinion.

The Other Queen is told by three perspectives, and there are no subtleties about how the three characters view things differently. The wife is jealous that the husband is in love with Mary Queen of Scots. Mary Queen of Scots wants to be queen no matter what. The husband is in love with Mary but has to stay faithful to his wife and his real queen, Elizabeth. This could result in some interest if the characters were DYNAMIC, but these happen to be the three most STATIC characters I've ever encountered in my life, and I've read a fair amount of books.

If you take a look at The Other Boleyn Girl, the main character, Mary, Anne Boleyn's sister, narrates, THE ENTIRE TIME. She starts the book out as a young innocent girl who's in love with Henry VIII but after a while sees him as a spoiled and uncaring man and falls out of love with him. She watches from the sidelines as her sister takes her place as his mistress, then rises even higher only to be executed in the end.

So Ms. Gregory, you should really take notes from your previous book and make sure your characters develop.

Now, it's unfair to say that her multi-perspective books aren't any good. The Boleyn Inheritance does the same thing, but that involves some passion that it actually appealing to the reader (Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper!), a seriously messed up woman (wife of George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's brother who was executed for allegedly sleeping with his sister, who testified against her husband), and perspective on the same events that are different without being too obvious (the way the strict and pious Anne of Cleves views things versus the way the ditzy, young Catherine Howard sees things). When you look back at the bland perspectives I listed in The Other Queen, I must say that perhaps this new book of hers isn't so much a bad version of The Other Boleyn Girl but more a bad version of The Boleyn Inheritance.

Or maybe I just don't like it because Boleyn isn't in the title...