“After losing her brother in a terrible incident, Andi Alpers is close to losing it herself. Angry that her mother isn't coping with grief, and that her father left them in the wake of such a tragedy, all that Andi cares about is her music. It's only when she's nearly failing that her father intervenes, and decides to take her to Paris. Her only ticket back home- her senior thesis. Before she even gets to the bottom of it, however, Andi stumbles upon a diary belonging to a girl. Even though there's two centuries dividing the two girls, Andi feels a connection-- a connection to Alexandrine's Paris, and to the lost prince of France.
Ever since I was young, I was always intrigued by the French and Russian revolution. There are A LOT of material on both, especially since there are never any solid records. I'm glad to say that Revolution is a great addition to many historical fiction books on that topic.
I really loved Andi, despite her meanness and messed up self. I find that I'm usually tough on those "tortured" characters, but I really sympathized with Andi, and I loved her voice. Her sarcasm was cutting but engaging, and her narration heartfelt.
Surprising, I felt little connection with Alexandrine and her diary entries. I felt that Donnelly only used her to skim over the revolution's events. And there were holes in her character-- like, if she was as poor as she described, how was she literate? I would have loved to know that. I also wished she was much closer to the other members of the royal family, like Marie-Therese.
Of course, that's not to say that I didn't choke up. God, both Andi and Alexandrine did a good job in that.
There were a lot of parallels between characters from the revolution and from Andi's present life, and it seemed like too much of a nudge of "oh what a coincidence- but no not really". Still, the amount of research put into this, and the way Donnelly weaves it in set me on an online search-hunt for the true events, and I love when books do that. ”
