Book Review: The Pretender
Here’s my review of The Pretender by Jo Harkin. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’ve read it or plan to read it. Then see today’s writing prompt at the bottom of this post.
The Pretender by Jo Harkin is one of the best historical fiction novels I have read in a long time. It shines a critical yet entertaining light on things that may or may not have happened during the War of the Roses via the perspective of a boy who grows into a young man over the course of the novel, who never knows who he really is aside from what he’s told by those who wield power over him and the world around him.
While it took a few chapters to get used to, I appreciated the older language used in this book, as it allowed me to fully immerse myself in the time period I was reading about. As I was reading this book, I never left the emerging Tudor era in England or its confused and contradicting historical accounts. Sure, at times I lost the thread of who was backstabbing whom or why but then realized that sometimes that was probably the point, as it was an era full of treachery and intrigue and murder and lies, at any and all costs to acquire or maintain power. And in the end, who knows what truths and stories have been lost to history?
The novel also presents many interesting questions related to religion, love, war, identity, and history, and who determines what they all are and or mean in the grand scheme of things. And John Collan’s coming-of-age tale was a clever way to pose and frame such questions. What better way to make sense of age-old questions than through a protagonist whose story starts and ends with open-ended and humble answers that aren’t clearcut or fully realized?
The main protagonist’s desire to read and write in order to understand the world around him and the people in it was also extremely interesting. It was interesting to read about how he unpacked and understood several books and writings available in his era, though they never seemed satisfactory enough to him, just as it was interesting to read about what he decided to write about and why, though this also proved unsatisfactory to him in the end.
This novel was full of witty banter and satire as well as action-filled and heart-felt scenes, which made it difficult to put down. I would recommend it to anyone who wants an interesting read that is also incredibly entertaining. If you are a history buff, you also won’t want to miss this one.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: The Traitor
Write something from the perspective of a traitor.
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