F | This book deserves zero stars. If I could just give it a zero in every review site I can, I honestly would just to warn people to not waste their time on this terrible novel that masquerades itself as a crime/mystery novel. It was bad from start to finish and I can't believe I actually wasted my time on this.
It takes a lot for a book to piss me off. It takes a lot for me to actually despise it. Even though I tend to rant on about the honest to Jesus horrible Sisi books by Allison Pataki, it had its charming moments in the first novel. If I hadn't read two biographies about Sisi by the time I read the book, it might not have pissed me off because I wouldn't have had the body of knowledge to know just how much Allison Pataki was disrespecting Sisi.
This book? Nah yo. This has officially claimed the title of my “Most Disliked Book”.
F | I still can't believe I wasted my time on this crap.
Allison Pataki's Sisi books are atrocities. Her portrayal of Sisi and company is horrendous. I get it. It's historical fiction and creative license is a thing. But Pataki essentially ran over history, pooped over the corpse, and then burned it before running over the ashes. You don't get points for tossing in sprinkles of research while making a mess of the story. Listing your sources doesn't suddenly make the book better, nor does it mean the information suddenly and magically translate into the writing. I had this problem back with the first one and Pataki never bothered to improve.
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.
