Sarah Dunant "Blood and Beauty"

 

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

  Oh... The Borgias... The historical family which overwhelmed my mind since I laid my hands on Assassin’s Creed games. I have never been as obsessed with any historical personalities as Borgias. All the characters of this book already became like my own family and friends. (In fact, my real family was very similar to Borgias… *sighs*) After reading so many books and historical documents- I feel like all of them are my long-gone friends. So no wonder I bought this book and read it. (If I read a book that is over 500 pages- it means I REALLY LOVE this thematic)

The reason I cannot give 5 stars is because of 3 things I didn’t like. So I shall start:

1. Characters. I was greatly missing a few VERY important characters in this story: Machiavelli and Da Vinci. The rest of the characters pretty much fit with what I have in my head: Caterina Sforza, Rodrigo Borgia, Giovanni Sforza, Juan Borgia, Gioffre Borgia, Sancha of Aragon, Alfonso of Aragon and etc.- they were exactly how they live in my mind. But some characters greatly disappointed me… Cesare… My beloved Cesare… My historical lover, if only I could travel back in time- we would get married and rule an entire Europe together as the cruelest tyrants that ever lived on this planet. In this book he lacked that aggression, energy, evilness…. And only at the end of the book I FINALLY saw the Cesare I fell in love for. Lucrezia was extremely childish, stupid and useless… She annoyed me during all these 813 pages. I cannot stand such women like her.

2. Style of the book. That the author did a truly great research on historical details- it is clearly seen. This is very accurate. BUT… on the other hand, too much historical data outstand the fiction side of the novel. Everything is so historically perfect that I started to miss…something. I do not know what it is, but I guess I lacked some artistic and literary beauty. The book seemed so… “dry”…

3. The ending. I do not know what happens to things when it comes to Borgias, but I already noticed that Showtime TV-series ended in the “unfinished” way, so does this book. The story of Borgias end WHEN Cesare dies at Viana’s battle after escaping Castillo de La Mota.

Because of these things I shall leave 4 stars, because no matter these three flaws, the book kept me entertained and I am happy I read this book. It was pretty good.