Saturday, December 1, 2007

Review - Boudica

I read this book by Vanessa Collingridge back in September 2007, and this will be an exceedingly short review (the less said the better).

Daily Mail "compelling"; Saga Magazine "deeply researched and powerfully explosive"; and Sunday Times "...writes with great verve".

Melisende "boring and poorly written, and a waste of trees. I am thankful that I did not buy this book!".

There were 21 chapters - and Chapters 9-15 dealt with Boudica, the Iceni and the rebellion. Everything before could have been condensed into one chapter (two if I am charitable) and the remaining 6 could have been condensed into one.

Sorry, although this was a non-fiction book, I was not impressed with the standard of presentation nor any of the "gound-breaking" research (which, by the way, was not so groundbreaking)! The author completely failed to keep my attention on a topic that, though familiar with, held great interest for me.

2 comments:

Carla said...

Ouch. Are there good non-fiction books you'd recommend on Boudica? I got bogged down in Manda Scott's series (will give them another try in due course), but I'm still interested in her. I suppose the perennial problem is that we know so little and the only written accounts are from the Roman side.

Melisende said...

Carla,

I will see what is out there. I read one many, many, many years ago - the author and title totally escape me.

I get really disappointed when a book is hyped up and doesn't live up to expectations.