Book Review: The Accidental Empress (Sisi #1) by Allison Pataki
F | Don't even bother.
Alright, full disclosure. I read this book back in 2015 & I actually reviewed it on Amazon, so this is pretty much a copy & paste of that old review that I wrote back then. However, my opinion still stands. This book it an atrocity. It is horrifically terrible. I am ashamed that I actually spent a few days reading this book.
For the love of God, don't waste money on this book. If you love to read books where intriguing, complicated women are turned into simpletons whose worth are tied into whether or not they are loved by their husbands or another man, then by all means, read it. However, if you want a book that respects Empress Elisabeth, look elsewhere because this is not the book you are looking for.
Pataki's Sisi is reduced to a weepy woman who suffered only because her husband didn't pay attention to her. This author reduced the freedom loving, introverted Elisabeth who wrote poems yearning for freedom and who had a fear of strangers into a woman whose deep depression was caused solely by the fact that her husband paid more attention to her mother-in-law and the empire. This author did not give Elisabeth the respect that she deserved.
Let us not forget that she also reduced Archduchess Sophie into an evil mother-in-law who sought to destroy her niece rather than write her as someone who could not see past her own opinions and traditionalist values blinded her to everything but her own thinking.
Do yourself a favour and avoid this book. Historical fiction or not, the treatment that Pataki gave to all of these people was horrendous. Read The Reluctant Empress or The Lonely Empress instead. They might be biographies, but you will enjoy reading those at least and the people are given the respect they deserve.