The Empress
Jul. 29th, 2025 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI picked up The Empress by Meg Clothier on a reading retreat where the author gave a talk - and she was awesome!
And, to begin with, I was really enjoying this book.
It follows Agnes, a princess of France in the late 12th century, who is sent to Constantinople at the age of 13 to marry the emperor's son.
I have to say, the writing and the protagonist's attitudes felt a lot more modern than I would have expected, given the setting, but I didn't feel that was necessarily a bad thing, since it made it a much more engaging and relatable read.
But around the 100-page mark, things took a definite turn - characters I'd liked started demonstrating terrible attitudes, making very poor decisions or doing bad things, Agnes started mooning over a very toxic man, and the whole thing got quite unpleasant in a lot of ways.
So, I unfortunately decided to stop reading it.
And, to begin with, I was really enjoying this book.
It follows Agnes, a princess of France in the late 12th century, who is sent to Constantinople at the age of 13 to marry the emperor's son.
I have to say, the writing and the protagonist's attitudes felt a lot more modern than I would have expected, given the setting, but I didn't feel that was necessarily a bad thing, since it made it a much more engaging and relatable read.
But around the 100-page mark, things took a definite turn - characters I'd liked started demonstrating terrible attitudes, making very poor decisions or doing bad things, Agnes started mooning over a very toxic man, and the whole thing got quite unpleasant in a lot of ways.
So, I unfortunately decided to stop reading it.
