R. D. ZimmermanReseñas

A visit to the perennially mysterious last days of the Romanov family. The small, but needed, redeeming twist at the end was a bit disappointing. The story did not particularly hold my attention, but it did spark my interest in exploring that part of world history.

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2.5 stars

This book follows two main characters: Ella, the sister of Alexandra (the last Tsarina of Russia); Ella was married to another high-ranking Russian royal; and Pavel, a peasant who becomes a revolutionary. Pavel’s wife is killed early in the revolution, and he becomes involved enough to help take the life of Ella’s husband.

I might not have that exactly right. I listened to the audio and missed much of it. It just didn’t hold my interest most of the time. I did appreciate two different people doing each character. I also liked the person narrating Pavel has a Russian accent. I don’t think I knew anything about Ella before. I did find it interesting that she later created a nunnery. I shouldn’t have been surprised at the end, but I was.½

Very intense read.

This one is going to the "Abandoned" shelf, I think.

My main problem with this book is that when you read fiction about real events you need something really powerful and captivating in the way the story is told - because actually you already know how it all ends.
So you need to be connected with things happening on every page, you need something that will build up the suspense and keep your interest up.
As a good example of it, the tv show 'The Tudors' comes to mind - you know very well how it goes, but you still keep hoping that maybe Anne will survive this time.

Unfortunately The Kitchen Boy lacks that bit of something. And even though there are hints about 'a twist in the end', I don't really care what it is - despite all twists in the world, the Romanovs' story ended the way it ended.

There are also minor problems, and although they are not so important, I can't help but rant.

First time I wanted to put the book down was when Nikolai and Alexandra started kissing in front of everyone. Like, really?

Second time I wanted to put it down (and actually did, mid-page and practically mid-sentence) was when Alexandra called Anastasia "Anya". I understand that author isn't Russian, but how difficult is it to research that the proper diminutive for Anastasia would be Nastya?
And yes, I googled specifically about Anastasia Nikolaevna - she, as any other Anastasia in Russia, was called only Nastya (and different forms of it, such as Nastenka).

Third, fourth, fifth and so on time I wanted to put the book down was when another Russian word was very weirdly spelled or incorrectly/unreasonably used.
The necessity behind putting some of those words in the text eludes me completely.
Especially I don't get why it's important to use 'kommunizm' instead of communism, 'bolsheviki' instead of Bolsheviks or 'arkhivy' instead of archives. But my personal favorite was, I suppose, the unexpected 'troopy' instead of dead bodies. Wrong form, by the way, in that sentence it couldn't be used in nominative case.

Also it seems like the author is a bit confused whether he wants to just use transliteration (as with 'konechno', 'shahmaty', 'russkogo'), or to get closer to the correct pronunciation (like using 'neechevo' for nichego, 'eezyoom' for izyum and 'eedee-ot' for idiot), or just to give foreign words weird-looking spelling (as with 'xoroshow' and 'xhorosho' - it's 'horosho', for God's sake; or 'zdravstvoojte' - seems like a real Dutch word, this one, especially with a j thrown in there).

Again, all these would have been just minor troubles if the story itself was great. Buuut.... nope.

This book felt really long. It was unnecessarily descriptive and delved into details on subjects which didn't add to the story. The only really interest was the russian verbiage used throughout.

Free on kindle 13th july 12

This book will surprise you. I love to have my expectations for a book to be completely wrong.

Don't be fooled by the lukewarm beginning and the lenghty routine descriptions. It's description of the assassination and transport of the dead royal family is amazing, as well as the secret at the end.

This book was fun to read and about an interesting time period--when science is really starting to gain momentum and the world is becoming more global-minded. I liked it. I really liked how the "real" Rasputin was never clearly laid out on the table. Even at the end when he talks about his wrong-doings, it's never explicitly stated if he was as big an ass as he had the potential for or if his activities were just misinterpreted by those around him.

This book made me want to learn more about the Romanov family and Russian history in general. Also, I now want to read about Rasputin from the Romanov's perspective.

Fascinating finding out more about Rasputin, a name I have heard often but never really knew much about. His daughter Maria comes across as being a very naive teenager learning a lot about life in one week. She thought of her father as something special but realizes he has more faults which the book clearly explains in great detail, she meets a boy and falls for him while knowing he is not all he seems and she runs all over the city trying to save her father yet going places no normal girl would go alone. Learned about Russian history while enjoyed a story.

Through the eyes of Leonka, kitchen boy and sometime playmate of the Tsarevich Aleksei, the reader is transported back to the final months and days of the Romanov family, held in isolation in Yekaterinburg in 1917. Robert Alexander paints a portrait of a genuinely loving, though colossally naïve, family, the last in a long line of Russian royalty that began with Tsar Michael in 1613. Though we know full well how the situation will end despite some dramatic glimmers of hope, the narrative is not unduly bleak and contains a surprising twist. At just 229 pages, The Kitchen Boy is also a relatively rapid read for someone looking to squeeze in another book before the end of the year.

This extremely well-written novel reads like a true-life adventure story. It's a tale of the murder of the Russian imperial family in 1918 in their place of exile in Siberia, told by one of the people who were present at the time. The plot ranges from revolutionary times to the present day and involves a deep, dark mystery: why were two of the bodies never discovered? The reader is quickly drawn into the story, and the writing is such that even though you know a terrible fate that awaits the last Tsar and his family, you keep hoping the ending will be different. This last part of the book is excellent with some unexpected plot twists, which brings the tale to a bittersweet conclusion.
The author often is lengthy in his writing and provides the reader with a rich feel for Russian culture and history.
While Alexander tells a fictional story, he does so while drawing heavily from historical events. Real people did real things, and some of those things were heinous. Looking back through nearly 100 years of history, it is easy to see what was not clear then. In murdering the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks revealed their true colors as ruthless murderers, willing to do anything to grasp and maintain power. And in doing so, they paved the way for profound brutality and ruthlessness that continue today.

I loved Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra. I love history. I thought I would love this book. I did not. I picked it up after the big Thanksgiving dinner and figured I'd have it completed by noon on Friday. Oh boy did it drag...the language is stilted, the story so repetitive and stop and go. I kept putting the book down. I very much wanted to put it onto the dnf shelf and walk away - but because it's a small book - I persisted and finished. It's the longest short book I've read in a long time.

It was okay. I liked the description of both sides of the revolution: Romanovs and the people. The interpretation of both I thought was done really well. Since you hear/read about how the citizens suffered it was nice to compare places in the hierarchy. I thought it lacked connection between the two main characters. The end fell a little flat as well.

Reporter Todd Mills is on a bridge after a phone call to meet a contact who's being blackmailed. He gets there and the person he's meeting is shot just as a huge storm comes through. The body is pushed into the water by the high winds and Todd is hit in the head by a sign that was toppled by the wind as well. This is the start of this book. Through several anonymous notes and phone calls we have a transgender woman as a suspect. Someone is out to get Todd's BF, a cop, as well. The finale takes place at a rural abandoned farm outside of Minneapolis just as a tornado is about to hit. Is an action packed thriller/mystery.

3rd in the Todd Mills Mystery series. This is after Todd has come out and is a well paid reporter for a local tv station. He is set to interview a bigoted congressman who is there on a book tour. However the interview is pre-empted when there's a fire and the congressman is kidnapped. The kidnappers are self proclaimed AIDS activists. Todd starts working on the investigation as to what happened and the whereabouts of the congressman with some obscure leads from his past. The book is well written and the mystery is good. The views on HIV/AIDS is still disturbing to this day. Although not to everyone's taste necessarily it certainly is a view of the time that the book was written and how closed/narrow minded some people can be. That being said parts of it are like a punch in the gut and may make you want to put the book down. Stick with it, it's worth the read.

An interesting imagining of the final days of the Tsar and his family told through the eyes of one of the servants allowed into captivity with the family in their final days. The author uses a creative twist to unravel the story. Unfortunately captivity, due to it's very nature, can be rather dull so portions of the novel drag a bit and I found myself skimming a great deal through the middle section of the book.

An intricately detailed story of the last days of Russia's last Tsar and his doomed family. A straight forward example of great historical fiction that wasn't straight forward at all! This mystery completely eluded and thrilled me. Highly recommend - a tale that is quick to read, but will stay with you long after the final page.

This book told the tale of the Russian Revolution from two opposing views - a princess of the royal family and a revolutionary. While almost every page brought impending danger and stark loss of life, it also managed to insert true humanity. The terrible miscommunications and misunderstandings between the classes are brought clearly to the reader making each new event that much more saddening. Well written and concise recounting of actual people and times.

This book was not as interesting as it could have been. I didn't mind that the story shifted viewpoints from the Grand Duchess to the poor revolutionist. The contrasting viewpoints were the most interesting part of the book. I think I'm in the minority here, but I preferred Pavel's storyline more. There was more action to his story, where Ella's storyline dragged a lot for me. She spent most of the story whining about her life with the Grand Duke, until she had her "epiphany". Then she became a "saint" who didn't want to be called a saint, but really wanted to be a martyr to her cause. The only time I cared about her was when Pavel was describing her at the end of the story. I have read that this is not Alexander's best work so I'll probably try another one.½

Facts mix with fiction in this story of the last days and weeks of the Romanov family, the last Tsar of Russia. He and his wife and 5 children were held captive in a house. Told from the point of view of Leonka, the kitchen boy, we learn about each member of the family and also about the loyal help that stayed with them and the hardships. Prominent members of the Red army and a couple of nuns are also woven into the fabric of what I think for me will be an unforgettable story. This slim volume is deceiving -- there is much packed into it, with an astonishing set of twists near the end.

The book is also a statement on the times. That the kindly Tsar didn't stay current may have contributed to his downfall, a lesson that resonates across ages. His wife, the Tsaritsa, was largely unknown to the people, so rumors flew, as often happens. Their only son was a hemophiliac, a death sentence at that place in history. He and the kitchen boy, early teens, spent time together. A young kitchen boy under these circumstances could come and go invisibly, bringing hope and information to the royal family. And what really happened to that vast fortune of jewels anyway?

This was an interesting, fictionalized take on the imprisonment and assassination of the Romanov family. It was believable, up until the very last pages when a character discovers she is the granddaughter of one one of the Romanov children. Preposterous. This would have been a fine story if it focused on the life of the kitchen boy as a servant to the Romanovs during their imprisonment, and as a witness to their execution. But, it took a crazy turn and became pure fantasy. Reading this book after knowing that the bodies of the Romanov family and their servants had been discovered, identified through DNA testing, and properly buried, makes the ending unnecessary. It was entertaining enough for the reader to listen to Misha's confession about his true identity as the kitchen boy. Why then make him one of the Red guards and how ridiculous to think Maria not only survived the wounds she sustained during the murder attempt, and with whatever the nuns could find to treat her infections and fever, but she also fully recovered and ran off with Misha to America. How could she forgive someone who had a hand in murdering her entire family? So what if he repented and so what if he saved her? He was partly responsible for the destruction of the Russian monarchy and the stupid Communist aftermath that plagued Russia for decades. He's no dreamboat...

The Kitchen Boy – Robert Alexander
4 stars
Mikhail Semyonov has a confession to make. It’s a long story that he records on a cassette tape for his granddaughter to hear after his death. He claims to be the last living witness to the murder of the Romanovs. His confession details the Siberian confinement of the Tsar and his family from early June in 1918 until their murder in mid-July. It’s an intimate, painstaking report of a close, devout family in a desperate situation. Mikhail was a witness and a survivor. And he has a dangerous secret.

There is suspense as Mikhail tells his story, but also some tedium. Knowing the tragic end that awaits the family, the detailed depiction of their day to day existence dragged. I’m sure this was deliberate. Time must certainly have dragged for the prisoners. Although clearly a fictional account, historically known documents such as letters and diaries are referenced frequently. The story deviates from actual history in a surprise ending that is nonetheless believable.

The story is told as the first person account of a presumed witness, and I felt that Mikhail assumed that his reader had some knowledge of Russian history. As this book seems written for a young adult audience, the lack of background might cause an uninformed reader some problems.

Leonka served as the kitchen boy during the Romanov’s last days. He was witness to their treatment, as well as their final moments. Although this book was written for young adults, it seemed to be dense and slow moving. There was a big twist at the end, which wasn’t really that big of a surprise. Overall, just an ok book. One I would find hard to recommend to teenagers.

This is good historical fiction - at least up until the ending.
Leonka is the kitchen boy to Tsar Nicholas and Tsaritsa Alexandra. He eventually witnesses the slaughter of the Romanov family. This is obviously well-researched, and it's a fascinating glimpse into the life - in exile - of the Romanovs and the forces that brought them down.

But I thought the ending was contrived ... too bad.

Book club # 1 read it in January 2005; Book club #2 chose it in Oct 2005 - I didn't re-read it.