"The Red Necklace" Book Review

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The winds of change are blowing through Paris in the winter of 1789, both for France and for our hero, a striking and mysterious Gypsy boy named Yann Margoza. He was born with a gift for knowing what people are thinking and an uncanny ability to throw his voice, and he has been using those skills while working for a rather foolish magicia. That work will soon end, however, and on the night of the magician's final performance, Yann's life will truly begin. That's the night he meets shy Sido, an heiress with a coldhearted father, a young girl who has only known loneliness until now. Though they have the shortest of conversations, an attachment is born that will influence both their paths.

"And what paths those will be! While Revolution is afoot in France, Sido is being used as the pawn of a fearful villain who goes by the name Count Kalliovski. Some have instead called him the devil, and only Yann, for Sido's sake, will dare to oppose him."

I really enjoyed this book. Some of its characterizations were a bit typical: the bad guy was referred to as the devil at times, there was a damsel in distress whose parentage was questionable, and the hero was a bit annoyingly virtuous, but overall it was very well written.

I don't usually like historical fiction because even though I'm not a huge historian and I don't know all of the details from that time, if it is written from the point of view of a very famous person from that time and I don't agree with how they are perceived and written about according to the author's point of view, it makes it hard to read and also makes me question how much time they took researching for a fictional account of a very well-known time in human history.

But this one was good! And I also love the time of Marie Antoinette so I was sold there, although I find the French Revolution appalling. I also liked that it was from a point of view outside of the royal family and the aristocracy, to a point. I would never have imagined the revolution from the point of view of an orphaned Gypsy. That was very clever on the part of the author. The magic was fun too, and the horror scenes weren't too graphic so young people could read it without getting nightmares. So I enjoyed it and recommend it to people who like young adult historical fiction with a twist.


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