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I've read some great historical fiction on Marie Antoinette (Juliet Grey's trilogy starting with Becoming Marie Antoinette comes to mind) but this was my first nonfiction read on this doomed queen. It was comprehensive and packed full of information, but never dragged. This book also reinforced why I prefer to read nonfiction history books in paperback/hardcover rather than on my Kindle--there were lots of pictures included throughout the text. I really like it when history books do this because when an author talks about a certain artifact or painting, it's helpful to have the picture immediately available for reference.

The text itself was quite good. I appreciated how the author also interpreted the emotional states and personalities of the main players, because this made them come alive in my mind. I regarded Marie Antoinette as a sympathetic historical figure before I ever read this book, but this biography does an especially good job of outlining the ultimate tragedy of Marie Antoinette--that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The author does present a balanced picture of her strengths and faults (along with those of her husband Louis XVI), but in the end, whatever her faults were, Marie Antoinette was a completely different person than how she was portrayed in the libellous pamphlets of the time and how some people still regard her today. I enjoyed learning more details about her life with this excellent biography.