Rebel Queen by, Michelle Moran
Release date: March 3, 2015
Wow Michelle Moran does it again. Such an amazing story
about a time and place I really knew nothing about and am now completely
mesmerized with. I want to read anything else I can find about this time
period, even though they probably won’t compare to how this is written.
These were absolutely amazing women and as always with
Moran's books it made do more research the first thing I searched was images of
the clothing how gorgeous they must have been. The way they dressed was amazing
and seeing the pictures even made it more real. The freedom these women had in
Jhansi was extraordinary especially compared to the village women who could
never leave the house, which is how Sita grew up plus she had an overbearing
grandmother to add to the stresses of daily life. Having a girl child in India
in the 1800’s was not a happy occasion if it was not a son then it just didn’t
matter, girls were sometimes killed, given away to who knows where and kind of
horrible circumstance they would end up in. (prostitution, slavery, nunnery
etc.) But Sita was lucky her father
loved her even after her mother dies her father never thinks of getting rid of
her in one of these horrible ways, though his mother has other ideas (she is an
awful person!), so to keep his mother from doing anything bad to Sita he
decides she should become a Durga Dal for Queen Lakshmi or the Rani as she is
called. The Durga’s are women soldiers and guards of the Rani who dress in
beautiful silks but fight better than most men. This is such a fascinating
chunk of history that I knew nothing about and if you love books with strong
female characters look no further than this one.
Every character in this book is drawn to perfection, there
are no one dimensional characters to be found, everyone has a distinct
personality and background. There are some great characters in this book even
the ones you don’t like; you will find you are still fascinated by their
actions. Sita is the person telling the story of what happened during those
fateful times when the British decided to just take over India and India and
their culture and traditions be damned they just wanted it. The end of the book
is heartbreaking, well, so are a few parts in the middle!
I of course had to love that Sita loved to read and because
in her Village women didn’t leave the house very rarely going outside this is
called purdah, but Sita lived many lives through books she read as she says,
“Even prisoners can escape if they have books.”
I was completely and thoroughly enthralled with this story,
I learned so much and felt completely immersed in the sights, sounds and
clothing of this time. Michelle Moran always writes so beautifully that you
feel like you are there with the characters and this book is no exception. This
book doesn’t even come out until March 7, 2015 but I want another Moran book
already!
5 Stars
I received this from edelweiss and the publisher for a fair
and honest review.
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