The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg (The Romanov Sisters #1) by Helen Rappaport7/23/2018
After reading this book I feel the need to go and pray It's no secret I can't stomach disrespectful or dramatic speculative non-fiction and sadly The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg (The Romanov Sisters #1) is joining the bottom rung with The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore and Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis as my worst non-fiction regrets in recent memory. To be fair, The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg (The Romanov Sisters #1) had its moments where I couldn't turn the pages fast enough (unlike The Radium Girls) and Ms Rappaport certainly knows her history (and has her lists of accolades) but this book crossed an invisible line for me and I will not be reading another work from this or any author that foregoes such commanding beginning narrative for cheap sensationalist passages filled with "it's there for sake of drama" type of writing. I feel absolutely terrible to be so blunt and negative about any book but sometimes these things need to be pointed out. In the beginning, The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg absolutely beguiles, opening each chapter with a window into the daily actions of the eleven figures who are held in a house that has been converted into an inescapable prison. These types of narrative views that allow the reader to feel they are in the room watching the former Empress of all of Russia and her daughters sew or mend their remaining articles of borrowed clothing or the abdicated Tsar reportedly smoking and pacing in the small garden are then broadened out into the outside world beyond the staked palisade to the horrible conditions of Russia (and even further) in the year 1918. Those and the brief "life began" passages kept me reading and held my full attention to learn about the era and what could be considered to shape certain personalities mentioned. Perhaps I allowed myself to get too comfortable because it was about this point where I noticed the author's personal views rearing especially when it came to Empress Alexandra (I really should have known better after reading The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra (The Romanov Sisters #2) but just thought this time would be different)). Forgive me but I wanted to form my own opinion and final thoughts with solid facts but for some reason, there was an alarming lack of footnotes and it was difficult to tell what was imagined, fabricated for the sake of others' requirements (the publishers?) or simply scraped off from public consensus. I would have loved to have seen the excerpts from the repeatedly referred diaries or the letters the grand duchesses sent when they were permitted but these types of documentation opportunities were oddly absent in this title. Even with the list of above troubling negatives, I still found myself turning the pages (reading compulsion?) and in fact was ready to score this non-fiction work high on my recommendations but then the July 16-17th 1918 chapter appeared and I felt the need to go and pray after reading the contents. The details of the final moments of those eleven individuals (ranging from age 61 to 13) in that dimly lit basement and the attempts to coverup the murders in the surrounding forest are beyond horrific but even the worst of what is known to have happened (supported by multiple eyewitness testimonies and recent forensics) could have been shared in a respectful fashion and I was shocked and sickened that the narrative ran straight into such cheap reading at that moment. If you are curious by all means read that particular chapter for yourselves but for me, the chosen presentation was an insult to the seriousness of the topic and that invisible line I mentioned earlier was severely crossed and I never felt so strongly to take a moment from a title and apologize to the departed figures of the past before. After that never-ending section, the book continued to skid down further speculations and figurative lines which thankfully ended abruptly with a part that I'm guessing was meant to be deep but seemed to contradict alot that was built-up earlier in the text. I'm sorry but days later and I'm still shaking my head. The subject deserves better, the lost souls of the Russian Revolution deserve better and finally, I should have picked a different book. -read and purchased on kindle Also in this non-fiction collection: The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra (The Romanov Sisters #2) by Helen Rappaport The Race to Save the Romanovs (The Romanov Sisters #3) by Helen Rappaport EGP/July 2018 Comments are closed.
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