Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles

This is another of the books that, if people have much of any knowledge of history at all, they will know that the lead character dies in an extremely grisly fashion later in life. As such, you concentrate on what the person was like when he or she was young.

In this particular case, we have a situation where the young Marie Antoinette was something rather far short of intelligent. Indeed, an 18th century version of a Valley Girl, concerned about clothes and men and that was about it. There is nothing to indicate any sort of deep intellectual depth; in fact, a very shallow pond would describe her quite well.

By the end of the diary she has managed to mature a little, but I think that, of all the young women portrayed in the Royal Diaries series, this is the one that would be the most disappointing to actually talk to. This doesn't mean the book is bad; it's just as good as the rest in the series, but the focus of its attention is not the type of person that would really prove to be somebody you could have an intelligent discussion with (unless you were talking only about clothes and men.)

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