The Media I Consumed In 2024

By now I'd imagine most of you know the drill, but for any newcomers:

Here you will find a list of everything I watched/read to completion in 2024, colour-coded by whether or not I would consider it 'queer media', with a rating out of ten and either a tiny (generally spoiler-free) review or silly comment to round it all out nicely.

As you will see, this year I went through a lengthy 'horrific things happening in cold places' spell. I was teetering on the edge of some kind of breakdown for a while and the idea of being somewhere empty and freezing where bad things happen to you through little fault of your own and whether you live through it or not you're completely changed afterwards was very appealing. God knows what that says about me. 

If you haven't the time or the will to sift through all this, and I certainly wouldn't blame you, here's the highlight reel:

Best Book: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Best Film: Society of the Snow

Best TV: Wolf Hall (Season 2)

Best Theatre: Hadestown (Live | West End Cast)

And now for the Meat...

 BOOKS

Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice — 8/10 — I have no illusions about myself and I know for a fact that if I were in a vampire story I would be Daniel Molloy. 

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (translated) by Anne Carson — N/A — Not really substantial enough to be rated, but beautifully presented and valuable to massive nerds such as myself. 

Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling — 5/10 — Love the characters but the prose is meh and the structure is like...oddly weighted is the only way I can describe it. We spent so long on Alec being My Fair Lady-ed that by the time someone started talking about the disc again I'd completely forgotten that I wasn't reading a low-stakes society drama. 

The Girls by Emma Cline — 8/10 — Cline's style is her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. I wish there'd been a touch more deviation from history; as it is the book is practically a 1:1 replication with the names slightly changed. It should be noted that I read this in one sitting immediately after watching Society of the Snow which, in combination with real-life happenings, was a disastrous move for my mental health. So don't do that. 

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov — 8/10 — I think I may actually like it more than I remember, but I was still a bit iffy at the time and not paying it the attention I should have. Full of little things that have stuck in my brain. 

Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit by Antonia Fraser — 8/10 — Fraser is one of those very voice-y aristocrats in the vein of Simon Sebag Montefiore, but she's a lot less conceited and you'd be surprised at the wonders that can do for a biography. 

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev and Gary Weston DeWalt — 10/10 — You live through this and decide to keep climbing mountains. My god man, take a hint. 

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver — 8/10 — I would've liked it a lot more if a certain death hadn't occurred 5 minutes from the finish line. Cheap and unnecessary and I'm not just saying that because I'm bitter (though I am)!

Alive by Piers Paul Read — 9/10 — I really don't know why I did this to myself. 

Thin Air by Michelle Paver — 4/10 — I almost wish I hadn't read this because it made me think less of Paver as an author. If you want to read one of her 'cold horror' books then pick one and ignore the second, lest you have the "Oh, I see what we're doing" revelation I had twenty pages into Thin Air. And don't pick this one. 

Society of the Snow by Pablo Vierci — 10/10 — There's nothing I can say about this that can possibly do it justice, except that something in my brain has been permanently knocked a little askew. 

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte — 10/10 — Not to be one of those people who says 'Nobody understands classic lit like I do' but nobody understands Wuthering Heights like I do. Emily I saw the messages you were sending me through the book.

FILMS

Napoleon — 3/10 — Can't remember why I coloured this green and that's really thrown me, but I can't bear to watch it again and find out. Possibly I was distracted by Vanessa Kirby? Anyway don't bother.

Society of the Snow — 10/10 — Film of the year, film of the decade, mayhaps film of the century. For the love of god pick your moment wisely.

Killers of the Flower Moon — 8/10 — Hurt by its length but at the same time I don't know what could've been cut. Weird one. 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — 5/10 — Would've loved to be a fly on the wall at this pitch meeting.

Kind Hearts and Coronets — 10/10 — Could not have appealed more to me if I'd written it myself. 

Rebel Without a Cause — 7/10 — God I was so into it and then it just ended. No closure. What are we doing.

Taxi Driver — 5/10 — I am going to bravely admit that I don't get it.

The Social Network — 7/10 — Not bad, but I don't see why everyone raves so much about it. At the very least it's leagues above its copycats. 

Catch Me If You Can — 8/10 — Fun!

Dune Part II — 8/10 — So good that it almost tricked me into thinking I liked the first one. I don't know why so many filmmakers these days are allergic to opulence and beauty, though. Surely not every house employs the same brutally minimalist interior designer. 

Shaun of the Dead — 7/10 —A little twee, but I still had a great time. 

The Personal History of David Copperfield — 4/10 —Such a shame. The actors are great, the set design and costumes are wonderful, but the way it was adapted just kind of guts the story. 

Everest (2015) — 6/10 — Jon Krakauer is upset that this film depicts him being asleep in his tent during an event he famously missed due to being asleep in his tent. If I were him I wouldn't be whining, lest someone bring up my poor reputation in the mountaineering community. Then again, if I were him I wouldn't have lobbed unprovoked criticism at the guy who did the rescuing while I slept in my tent. 

Challengers — 10/10 — This is what's happening in my head when I read a Realm of the Elderlings book.

The Virgin Suicides — 5/10 — Did Kirsten Dunst somehow become...worse at acting as she aged?

How To Steal a Million — 10/10 — Oh my god this is good. Like you don't need me to tell you that, but everything in this film works so well it's unbelievable. If I could buy a physical copy of the soundtrack for less than £467 it would never leave my CD player. 

My Own Private Idaho — 6/10 — Bizarrely charming or charmingly bizarre? It's hard not to feel pity for Keanu Reeves as River Phoenix acts circles around him for hours on end. 

Cursed (2005) — 2/10 — I read about what this film could have been, what it was until Weinstein scrapped the footage, and wept a little.

The Witch (2015) — 10/10 — I'm not a 'girlhood' 'coquette' sort of feminist and I always have that one Ursula K. LeGuin quote running through my mind, but for a very brief moment towards the end of this film I did absolutely get it. 

The Bounty (1984) — 8/10 — ONE COCONUT MR. CHRISTIAN!!!

Bend it Like Beckham — 7/10 — These are lesbians. 

The Village (2004) — 10/10 — Well I don't know what everyone else's problem is because I think it's great.

Lost in Translation — 7/10 — Spent most of the runtime having an existential crisis about the fact that Scarlett Johansson was nineteen during this film. 

Trap — 6/10 — It started out (I think intentionally) cheesy but pretty good...and then it kept going...and going...and it just wouldn't stop. 

Little Women (1994) — 10/10 — I'm sure you don't need to me to describe it to you.

View from the Top — 3/10 — Don't enjoy that I have to colour this purple. 

Emily (2022) — 7/10 — People aren't going to like this but I think that if we're making up boyfriends whole cloth then we should at least have the courage to make Branwell gay. 

Fanny & Alexander — 10/10 — One of the filmiest films I've ever seen and I adored every single minute of it. Just gorgeous. 

The Mummy (1999) — 7/10 — A little overhyped but a good time nonetheless.

TV SERIES

The Terror — 9/10 — Would've been a 10/10 if not for the fact that we not only see tuunbaq, but we see tuunbaq repeatedly and at length. So much of this is about fear of the unknown and I think it really undercuts that theme to be like well here is the thing actually. 

Domina (Season 1) — 7/10 — Is sometimes written as though the audience won't understand it's set during a different time period with different values and different attitudes to life. 

Gilmore Girls — 6/10 — Both of these women and the men they date annoy me no end, the only saving grace is Paris. Also Kirk. Apparently there was going to be a Jess spin-off and I'd give my firstborn child to see what a mess that would've been. 

Young Royals (Season 3) — 10/10 — Stuck the landing impeccably. My heart says there were at least another six series in this, my brain says thank god Netflix let their best property die with some dignity.

The Dropout — 9/10 — Stuff like this and Anna Delvey inspire an existential dread in me about how the fate of nations depend on like ten people with far more money than sense.

The Americans (Season 1) — 8/10 — The Platonic ideal of a TV series. 

Chernobyl — 10/10 — 2018-19 there was something in the water, what a run of prestige miniseries.

Dead Boy Detectives — 3/10 — Absolutely dreadful, I hope it runs for five seasons minimum (note from the future: ☹️)

Bridgerton (Season 3) — 2/10 — The first two were hardly prestige television but I did largely enjoy them. We've taken a very steep nosedive and I'm not convinced we're going to recover. 

Interview with the Vampire (Season 2) — 9/10 — I put off watching episode seven because I knew what was coming and would you believe it I wept from minute one to the bitter end. My mother adores Lestat. 

Twenty Twelve — 6/10 — So that's all good then. 

House of the Dragon (Season 2) — 7/10 — I went through the opposite experience to most viewers in that I started out deeply unhappy and the show regained my trust with each subsequent episode. 

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder — 8/10 — I never read the book but several of my friends did and frankly they should have pitched it to me better. 

House M.D. — 8/10 — My original comment here was another Challengers joke but I no longer remember what I meant and if I can't figure it out then you definitely won't. 

North & South (2004) — 8/10 — Watching this as someone whose hometown is mentioned in "It's Grim Up North" I can promise it's not quite that drab, but the story's certainly popular for a reason. 

Heartstopper (Season 3) — 1/10 — I think the presence of Foldo from The Letter for the King distracted me so much last season that I forgot I was basically watching terrible actors read aloud from a textbook about queer identity and mental health. It didn't work this time. 

Sweetpea — 10/10 — Love to see Ella Purnell starring as a repressed bisexual in a horror/comedy series.

The Diplomat — 7/10 — Usually I hate these sorts of things but every so often they make a good one! 

The Empress (Season 2) — 4/10 — This could be really good but they just refuse to stop making bizarre choices. Why is so much time dedicated to that one woman and her fiance? Why did we need the 'illegal homosexuality' episode which is totally unconnected to anything else? Why do the costumes look like that?

Wolf Hall (Season 2) — 10/10 — Once again I wept through the entire last episode. Literally what can I say? Costumes impeccable, acting incomparable, music just spectacular. Will surely be revered for generations to come. 

THEATRE

Jesus Christ Superstar (Live | Touring Cast) — 9/10 — Exactly the same cast as last time (minus Julian Clary thank god) but the months of doing it over and over again have clearly paid off. Excepting the microphone thing which does put me off a bit, I can't think of anything that would've made it better. Hannah Richardson please call me. 

Hadestown (Live | West End Cast) — 10/10 — Everything I thought it would be and more. 

Wicked (Live | Touring Cast) — 1/10 — A friend offered me this ticket, dinner, and a trip to Liverpool for free and even that didn't make up for the two hours and forty five minutes of life I lost enduring this show. Stephen Schwartz wrote 'All I Ever Wanted' from The Prince of Egypt. He wrote 'Hellfire', 'The Bells of Notre Dame'. I genuinely cannot believe this. 

Absalom & Eteri (Live | Tbilisi State Opera) — 5/10 — It only premiered internationally this year and frankly I get it. It's just sort of okay. Costumes, set design and so on were astounding. As we were leaving I saw two obviously English girls in the lobby and commented on it to my friends who ignored me, and then several weeks later it turned out that they were also on their year abroad studying Russian at our tiny language school. Moral of the story is that I'm right about everything all the time. 

The Media I Consumed in 2023

They say everyone's a critic, and I think we can all agree that no critic is harsher than a teenage girl. 

Much like last year, I have compiled a list of every piece of media I consumed to completion between 1/1/23 and 31/12/23, along with my surely fascinating thoughts about them—all colour-coded for your (and future me's) convenience! Excepting live stage productions, I haven't included rereads or rewatches. Mostly spoiler-free, but I couldn't stop myself from going into detail about...certain things. You have been warned. 

The queer media bar was much lower (and much less abstract) than last year's. This time, the criterion was as simple as Is there queer representation? It didn't have to be 'good' representation, in fact I much prefer the opposite, it just had to be there with some meaningful impact. Behold the code:

Explicit

To some extent /word of god/that one bit in The Winter Prince

Nowhere to be found

If you haven't the patience to sift through all this (and I really can't blame you), here are the ones you should go out of your way to watch and read:

Favourite book: The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein

Favourite film: Bottoms

Favourite TV series: Interview With The Vampire

Favourite theatre(?): A Little Life

And now for the details...

BOOKS

The Praise Singer by Mary Renault — 8/10 — Haven't the energy to unpack it further but I think there's a real significance to this being the last of her Greek novels (excepting Funeral Games which I don't really count) and The Last of the Wine being the first. Something something reflections of each other. 

Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill — 1/10 — I've rewritten this paragraph about five times because I can't articulate what it is about this book that I dislike so strongly. It's vulgar in a way that isn't clever or making any kind of commentary; just unpleasant for the sake of shock value. The protagonist doesn't learn or change at all; if he'd become worse, even, that might've at least been interesting. The big twist is neither big nor a twist. An incomparably hollow thing.

An Oresteia (translated) by Anne Carson — 10/10 — Carson's sense of humour is exquisite. 

Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox — 8/10 — Irrefutably a book about Alexander the Great. Fox uses the phrase "the sequel" far too often for my liking, but then again people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. 

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone— 5/10 — A little much, I think. The language is so flowery by the end that I genuinely don't have a clue of what happened in the last few pages. 

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake — 1/10 — If you can't juggle six viewpoint characters the solution is not to condense them all down into cardboard cutouts. 

Anna by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles — 5/10 — Let down badly by the second half, though I'm willing to admit that most of that is due to my own sensibilities. Justice for Boris and Jean Luc!

Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich, Benj Pasek, Steven Levenson, and Justin Paul— 3/10 — The horse is dead, guys. No number of secret gay boyfriends is going to revive it.  

The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein — 10/10 —Intense. Very intense. I'd love to write a real piece about this someday. I know that the whole "Your beauty makes me sick" speech and subsequent incident are what people tend to focus on (and for good reason, my god) but personally, I'm obsessed with that bit where Medraut says something actually very reasonable about how Artos can't expect him to be constantly watching out for Lleu and then immediately starts comparing himself to Cain. So funny and so painful. 

S by Doug Dorst and J. J. Abrams —3/10— You could chop the last three quarters of this book off and come away with the same amount of information.

Petrograd: The City of Trouble by Meriel Buchanan — 10/10 — It sounds very wishy-washy but Buchanan's descriptions are fascinating and her writing style was exceptional, it makes me wonder why her novels never took off. Exceedingly interesting, as Nicholas II would say. 

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins — 10/10 — I went in expecting a simplistic cash-grab and was very wrong. There's a much darker, bleaker tone to this when compared with the original trilogy which I personally prefer. Obsessed with Sejanus Plinth. 

You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca — 4/10 — Most of the horror I experienced while reading this novel came from the fact that I was reading it on my commute to uni via the battered corpse of what was once Northern Rail. It's not the twisted tale of depravity most reviews make it out to be—basically it's just a bit of gore—but there's a reveal towards the end which will 100% make you think "Well why did I have to read all of that?" and grudgingly I admit that that's worth something. 

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov — 8/10 — Tiepolo Blue but if it was good. 

In a Garden Burning Gold by Rory Power — 6/10 — Wasn't jazzed about the first half, but the tiny glimpse we get of the Domina family and their country (which I can't name because infuriatingly there's no map) intrigued me just enough to make me finish the book. I will be reading the sequel but I'm not happy about it. It should also be noted that many people on goodreads have categorised this as a queer story but I genuinely can't fathom why. Is it an in-joke? Shipping gone rogue? Maybe you can read it and tell me. 

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev — 9/10 — Pavel is a better man than me, I'd have duelled Bazarov on night two maximum. 

Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb — 6/10 — I asked for more Verity and the monkey curled its paw. Very funny that the Fool says "I love you" to Fitz like twice per chapter, on day one of knowing these people Starling tells him "Yeah the Fool is in love with you", and then Fitz has the audacity to be shocked. I treasure each and every one of these idiot characters. 

Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb — 8/10 — Each generation of Farseers has one bisexual prince entwined in a nightmarish love triangle with consequences that will echo down the ages and one utter lunatic. Sadly we've had to outsource generation three's lunatic, but I'm thrilled to report that quality has not taken a hit. 

Golden Fool by Robin Hobb — 10/10 — I doubt that anyone has ever thought these words but poor Civil. Born to be the bisexual prince entwined in a nightmarish love triangle, cursed to be the lunatic. On a more genuine note this is a brilliant book and no two ways about it. Every character was on top form, every aspect of the plot had my complete attention. I wanted to strangle Fitz at several points but that just means we're back, baby. There is a section in the middle that made very little sense to me because I thought all those people who say you need to read Liveship Traders first were exaggerating, but I imagined myself as someone who knows and cares about these characters and had a great time anyway. 

FILMS

Pride (2014) — 7/10 — 1:15:53 you know what I'm talking about, what a wonderful moment. My biggest complaint is all the 'ah, these silly lesbians with their silly female concerns' towards the girls who end up splitting off. Obviously I wasn't there, I don't know how it went down, but the film frames it in a way that encourages the audience to laugh along with misogyny and that's not very fun. 

Knives Out — 10/10 — A breath of fresh air amidst the smog of comic adaptations and remakes worse than the original.

Knives Out: Glass Onion — 10/10 —I mean, you've all seen it. It's a great film. A+. 

The Age of Innocence (1993) — 3/10 — Didn't really care for the story, some of the characters were interesting, Winona Ryder was magnificent. Given that the authors were friends and read each other's work, I feel almost certain that Wharton's Countess Olenska was modelled on James' Princess Casamassima.

The Assassin of the Tsar — 5/10 — This concept is, in my opinion, so absurd as to be comical but the film takes itself dead seriously. It's...certainly not for everyone.

Seven Years in Tibet — 6/10 — First this, then Troy. You'd think they'd learn their lesson and stop making Brad Pitt do any accent besides his own.

Dune (2021) — 3/10 — I watched this once and dismissed it as style over substance. Then I started thinking about it more and more and thought "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's actually good and just takes a while to sink in." So I watched it again. Oops.

This is Spinal Tap — 10/10 — I feel like watching anything else ever again would simply taint Spinal Tap. How does one move forward from the best film humanity will ever create?

Kill Your Darlings — 7/10 — Everything I know about American literature comes to me from Dead Poets Society so you could tell me that this is all completely true and I'd believe you. 

Carol (2015) — 8/10 — Cate Blanchett is never better than in a Patricia Highsmith adaptation. 

Nimona — 7/10 — Normally I don't get along very well with stuff meant for a younger audience but you know what? This is a good one. Only a handful of lines made me want to lop an ear off from cringe. 

Dear Ex (2018) — 9/10 — A wonderful, sincere little gem deserving of a title far better than the one it has.

Barbie — 7/10 — Good fun. 

Baby Driver — 5/10 — Recommended to me by a friend who raved about the diegetic music and how everything lined up which, like, yeah! That was really cool! It would've been nice to get a story with a bit more depth or even a multi-dimensional love interest but I suppose you can't have everything.

Oppenheimer — 10/10 —Left the cinema and felt everything all at once.

Rosaline — 6/10 — Was expecting something in the 'girlbossified retelling' genre so my hopes weren't high. Pleasantly surprised. 

Bottoms — 10/10 — I am the target audience for this film. Never before has a piece of media been made to appeal so completely to me. 

The Green Knight — 9/10 — Some scenes lingered a bit too long, I think, but a really brilliant film nonetheless. 

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — 8/10 — Obsessed. The District 12 stuff was way too condensed, a lot of Sejanus content was cut, and I disliked that the ending was made rather less ambiguous, but very loyal to the source material overall. My first thought as I walked out was that it wasn't long enough, but everyone I've spoken to since said that it needed to be shorter, so take that as you will. 

The Wonder — 4/10 — On paper I should love this, sadly didn't quite click.

May December — 8/10 — The opposite of Dune in that I didn't like it at first, kept thinking about it, watched it again and loved it. 

Another Country — 9/10 — Maurice's more depressing cousin. I do feel that if they wanted to make a biopic that badly then they should have just...made the biopic. 

Saltburn — 2/10 — Emerald Fennell and James Cahill have an awful lot in common, I think. Someone ought to set them up for lunch.  

TV SERIES

Interview with the Vampire — 9/10 — Sam Reid is Lestat and Jacob Anderson is Louis. I cannot believe that we have been blessed with such a spectacular adaptation. I was also really thrilled about Damon Daunno's cameo because he has the most beautiful voice and I am reduced to tears whenever I hear him sing. Admittedly he didn't sing and I cried for another reason, but you can't deny the man can act.

The Letter for the King — 7/10 — Can't remember the last time I was so upset about squandered character potential. Prince Viridian is just fascinating, but they waste him completely. The show makes a point of depicting him as someone who isn't evil so much as he is deeply ill, and then proceeds to treat him like he's a fundamentally terrible person anyway which feels...not great? On another note, I'm so in love with the "and hated me for every second of it" scene in episode 6 that I've gone back to watch just that several times. Why they decided to shoehorn the Jussipo/Foldo thing into the last half-hour but let Viridian and Jabroot spend six episodes angstily dancing around each other with scene after scene like that will forever elude me. 

Half Bad — 9/10 — I read all three of the books years ago and apparently don't remember a single thing about the story. I know I didn't really care for them which seems insane because this is the sort of thing I've always gone feral for.

1899 — 4/10 — Started off very strong; the last few episodes took it so far off the rails that I completely lost interest. I am Aneurin Barnard's biggest fan, however, so getting to watch him frolic about a Victorian ocean liner looking dark and broody meant that it wasn't a total loss.

Euphoria — 5/10 —Unbelievably melodramatic but it's so fun and well put together that you can't help but enjoy it.

The Last Kingdom (Season 1) — 1/10 — After watching this I read that it's based on a book series by Bernard Cornwell which is exactly what it felt like. 

The Last of Us — 9/10 — Sorry! Can't talk about this in an interesting way because the game is one of the biggest reasons that I am generally the way that I am. I will forever have a huge Ellie-shaped dent in my brain which, unfortunately, makes it impossible for me to be normal about this story.

Shadow and Bone (Season 2) — 4/10 — Oh, what have they done to you...

Stranger Things — 8/10 —I love Robin I would kill for Robin; the scene where she comes out to Steve? I was in floods of tears.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story — 5/10 — By all means passable. The only thing I really hated was the way they treated Princess Charlotte and Leopold as a punchline. She died an awful death and her husband was devastated, it's such a weird thing to make into a recurring joke. 

Yellowjackets — 7/10 — Don't at all care for the 2021 timeline but I have a thing for disaster-horror so the 1996 timeline is made for me.

Heartstopper (Season 2) — 6/10 —An undeniable improvement! The dialogue's more polished, the acting's better, there's a little bit of tooth to the story. I also love to see Letter For The King alumni kicking about in other things so that was a pleasant surprise—playing exactly the opposite character and all. 

The Borgias — 7/10 — Season one was fine, season two was one of the best series of television I have ever watched, season three made me want to pluck an eye out. A rollercoaster much like the Borgia rule. Holliday Grainger please call me.

Castlevania: Nocturne — 5/10 —Picked up steam towards the second half but, as with 'original' Castlevania, I think I'll much prefer the latter seasons...if we get there.

Skins (Seasons 1 & 2) — 7/10 — Characterisation in this show is unfathomably good. Many other brilliant things happened between the first few minutes of S1E1 and the end of the show but there will forever be a special place in my heart for "God, I'm good". Unfortunately I do not care for Effie so can't bring myself to go on. 

Sex Education (Season 4) — 3/10 — Something went badly wrong in the writer's room I think.

The Fall of the House of Usher — 5/10 — The only Flannigan work I've really loved was Midnight Mass, which I'm beginning to think was a fluke. I'm glad that Kitsey from The Goldfinch is getting good roles, though, because I do enjoy her. 

Broadchurch (Season 1) — 7/10 — A few moments here and there were a bit hammy and some things could have been handled better, but I spent the entirety of the last episode writhing about in horror so that has to count for something. 

The Gilded Age (Season 2) — 3/10 — This is the worst show on television and I will kill someone if I don't get ten seasons of it. 

THEATRE

Carmen (Live | Dnipro Opera) — 6/10 — The singing and music were fine on the whole. Set design, costumes, and choreography (except for Escamillo's entrance, which was very cool) were underwhelming, but then I suppose allowances have to be made because it's a touring production. Carmen could not act to save her life. 

A Little Life (Live | Original Cast) — 8/10 — The ultimate trauma bonding experience. Wanted to go and harrass James Norton about War and Peace at the stage door but I was too much of a coward so my questions go unanswered. Luke Thompson is wasted on Bridgerton.

Julius Caesar (Live | Royal Shakespeare Company) — 8/10 — Exceptionally well-performed with brilliant staging. For the love of god, though, I wish we could be done with this era of sticking all the actors in monochrome casual-wear and setting them loose on a similarly monochrome, minimalist set. It's not artsy. It's tired and dull. I was also going to complain about the werewolf dance routine but I'd have to explain it and to be honest no words could paint a picture of what all of us in that theatre experienced.

Jesus Christ Superstar (Live | Touring Cast) — 7/10 — Julian Clary as Herod is a torture technique designed to specifically target me.

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (Proshot | Original Cast) — 5/10 — Wish it were better.

Hamilton (Live | Touring Cast) — 7/10 — Is it me or are touring productions steadily decreasing in quality? It was fine, it was Hamilton, Eliza was wonderful, nobody tripped over their words, but it was noticeably rough around the edges. 

Умер — (Translation of) a Poem by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich

A relatively quick translation of my favourite KR poem. Notes:

1. This translation isn't 1-1 (though I don't think I've strayed terribly far). Unlike my usual work, I decided that since it's a poem I should try and value the general vibe over getting it as close to the original as possible. Let me know if it worked.

2. At times, he uses what I assume to be nosism which I have translated simply as 'I' for ease of reading. I say assume because I could easily have interpreted it wrongly, but some lines (in my unprofessional opinion) make little sense if they are actually supposed to indicate 'we'.

3. I'm fairly certain it scans with the accompanying Plevitskaya song, though annoyingly some lines of the poem are omitted from the song anyway.

So without further ado...

My New Year's Resolution Was to Consume Only Queer Media—Here's How That Went

Some of you may remember that since January I have been keeping track of every book I have read and every film/TV series I have watched, giving it a small review or comment, rating out of ten, and colour-coding it in a spreadsheet based on whether or not I would consider it queer media. I did start with some criteria, but threw them out early on because I realised things were slipping through the net. As a result, my categorisation is pretty much vibes-based. I am sure that some of my choices contradict themselves and many of you may disagree. To you I say, it's harder to find where the line should be drawn than you think. As a matter of fact, Plebs (Season 6) gets a special rating because I really could not work out where to put it. 

The categories are: Green (absolutely queer), Purple (debatable), Yellow (Plebs Season 6), Red (not queer).

Though I have tried my best to flag up any particularly egregious slips, product may still contain spoilers. Read ahead at your own risk.

BOOKS

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske — 8/10 — Maybe I was just feeling uncharacteristically generous towards smutty YA novels when I read this, but as William Morris' number one fan I wholeheartedly endorse it.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu — 5/10 — For all that Le Fanu tries to make her out as some sort of evil mastermind, Carmilla is in fact quite stupid.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov — 10/10 — This is what literature's all about, baby.

Letters of Anastasia Nikolaevna (translated) by Helen Azar — 10/10 — Does exactly what it says on the tin.

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne — 0/10 — See here.

The Still by David Feintuch — 6/10 — Predictable and often exhausting. I am, however, in awe of Feintuch's bravery to deliberately write a protagonist who just really sucks for like 4/5ths of the book.

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice — 8/10 — As a fan of the first book's ending, I simply choose to believe that this is Lestat's fanfiction about himself.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins-Reid — 5/10 — I did not care about a single one of these characters.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee — 7/10 — A bisexual character who is in fact bisexual? Astounding.

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee — 3/10 — Felicity Montague is my go-to example of a 'feminist' character who isn't really a feminist and instead has a ton of internalised misogyny to work through. 

The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee — 8/10 — This was uncomfortably like reading my own inner monologue spilled out on a page. Fantastic job.

The House by the Dvina: a Russian Childhood by Eugenie Fraser — 7/10 — I'd like to issue a general recommendation for this and also the accompanying documentary.

The Princess Cassamassima by Henry James — 8/10 — I loved the vast majority of it but the awful awful non-ending means that I can't in good conscience recommend it.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint — 4/10 — Oh look, somebody else who needs to search up what the word 'feminist' means.

Maurice by E.M. Forster — 9/10 — Brilliant quality aside, how cool is it that this exists at all‽

The Intoxicating Mr. Lavelle by Neil Blackmore — 4/10 — Blackmore imagines himself profound. He is not. In addition, having read this and half of another of his novels, I can say with some confidence that his characters all have one trait and act accordingly. 

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov — 5/10— An interesting concept that I don't think quite hit the mark. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt — 9/10 — I don't think a day has gone by since I read this that I haven't thought about it at least a little bit.

Daughters of the Winter Queen by Nancy Goldstone — 8/10 — This book reignited an obsession but I'm afraid that my family favourite remains Prince Rupert.

The King Must Die by Mary Renault — 6/10 — Not her best work, it must be said. 

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb — 7/10 — I am desperate for a Verity spin-off novel. I would happily read a book about this man tying his shoelaces in the morning.

The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria by Christopher Mcintosh — 5/10 — Frankly, there wasn't all that much information about Ludwig in this book.

Letters from Russia by Adolphe de Custine — 7/10 — I just learnt that Custine is the guy spouting scathing critiques of all the courtiers in Russian Ark which I feel is a legacy he would be proud of. 

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb — 7/10 — There was simply not enough Verity content in this book. I expect better in future.

The Russian Court at Sea by Frances Welch — 6/10 — Some of Welch's wording...made me a tad uncomfortable. Let us not discuss queer historical figures as though they're quaint and amusing curiosities please.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio — 8/10 — I have an awful lot to say concerning the ending so if you are planning to read this book, skip ahead. Ahem: The idea of Oliver getting out of prison only to learn that James killed himself due to guilt is a great one, but to turn around and then say 'oh he was just pretending actually' makes the whole thing ring really hollow. Like, what was the in-universe point? Even in a writing sense I cannot understand it—the only reason I can think of would be for the Romeo and Juliet symbolism but there isn't any because Oliver doesn't then proceed to kill himself. If it was because Rio wanted to avoid the 'kill your gays' trope then she could've ended on a slightly grim but ultimately very touching reunion which would have left a much better taste in my mouth.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt — 10/10 — What a masterpiece. Certainly the best thing I've ever read and quite probably one of the best novels ever written. Beyond deserving of the Pulitzer.

If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich — 3/10 — Everything I disliked about Heartstopper turned up to max. Felt like barely passable fanfiction of another story.

The World of Christopher Marlowe by David Riggs — 9/10 — Informative and wonderfully written.

Stats:

Out of 29 books read, 20 fell into the green and purple categories giving me the somewhat unfortunate score of 69%. 

FILMS

Effie Gray — 3/10 — In a word: dull.

The Handmaiden — 9/10 — Some performances were less than stellar but otherwise brilliant.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) — 6/10 — Everyone in this film is astoundingly pretty. That was my main takeaway.

Giant Little Ones — 7/10 — Really quite sad.

Juno — 1/10 — The cast was fantastic, unfortunately they were given nothing redeemable to work with.

Firebird — 10/10 — My love for this film goes beyond words. If for some god-forsaken reason you don't want to watch the whole thing, you at least have to watch the wedding sequence—a masterclass in filmmaking.

Downton Abbey: A New Era — 5/10 —I wish Julian Fellowes wasn't so insistent on having his characters be either married or in a relationship at all times.

Containment — 3/10 — Didn't really get it.

Gosford Park — 2/10 — On paper I like this film, in practice it didn't click with me.

Crimson Tide — 7/10 — Genuinely amazed by how much I enjoyed this. I typed up a huge paragraph about how good the scene where Ramsey's lurching up the stairs to the control room is but for once I'm going to spare you.

Ammonite — 2/10 — Another dull one. 

Operation Hyacinth — 8/10 — Big fan. Simple as that.

Benediction — 7/10 — Visuals? Sublime. Acting? Exquisite. Writing? Sure. Editing? Argh.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies — 8/10 — Police Squad on steroids. Best gag is how softly Moeller says "oh scheisse" as he repeatedly tries to pull the flag away only for the damage to keep getting worse and worse. 

The Scapegoat (2012) — 7/10 — Some aspects were great and others highly questionable. I don't know how the source material deals with it but I didn't get the impression that Sturridge is aware of how creepy the ending is when you think about the implications.

Persuasion (2022) — 1/10 — We all know.

War and Peace (1956) — 6/10 — At this point, I'm beginning to think that my man Hippolyte Kuragin doesn't appear in any adaptations. I'm also a particularly big fan of the scene where Petya gets on his horse, it cuts to Natasha, and then cuts to what is very obviously a grown man galloping away. 

Beverly Hills Cop — 5/10 — You could so easily do a gay reading of this. Like, you'd barely even need to invoke death of the author.

Look Both Ways — 5/10 — Cool concept, mostly entertaining.

Austenland — 6/10 — I didn't really care for the first two-thirds but the last third unironically blew me away.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio — 7/10 — I'm sure you can guess how pleased I am about Hubert's character arc but the film as a whole felt a little tired.

Atonement — 3/10 — Kind of just wanted to be watching something else.

The Half of It — 7/10 — Another that I didn't expect to like as much as I did. Some not half-bad social commentary either. 

Thoroughbreds — 9/10 — Man, what a loss Anton Yelchin was. If the film was this good then I cannot imagine the experience that would've been watching this play out in a theatre. 

Brokeback Mountain — 8/10 — A lot of stuff I liked, some stuff that feels a bit out of date. Someone please tell me that the hat symbolism is, like, film 101 and not just me reading into everything again.

Your Name Engraved Herein — 4/10 — I think it might've been down to a bad translation but I could not follow this film at all. The parts I could understand were lovely, though.

The Goldfinch — 8/10 — Aneurin Barnard as adult Boris was an inspired decision and an absolute treat to watch. My critical (slightly spoilery) notes, however, are thus: 1. Amsterdam was way too condensed, the film is already like two and a half hours long they could've stuck another ten-fifteen minutes on there. 2. I'm a little miffed about how they almost completely ditched Boris/Theo—maybe the young actors were too young to show one of those scenes (also that's another point, why don't they get any older during Vegas?), but I think the fact that teenage Theo self-admittedly loved Boris is an important factor in why he's willing to trust him so much as an adult despite his betrayal. 3. In the book when the painting is stolen again and Boris gets shot, it's Boris and not Theo who is nearly hysterical about the painting while Theo's just desperate to make sure Boris is okay. Film-Theo barely glances at Boris and apparently just...leaves him bleeding out in the car park? If I were film-Boris I wouldn't have bothered coming back.

My Policeman — 5/10 — Considerably less than the sum of its parts.

Stats

Out of 28 films watched, 16 fell into the green and purple categories giving me an overall score of 57%.

TV SERIES

Troy: Fall of a City — 7/10 — I'm so pleased that this wasn't yet another aggressively masculine and heterosexual Trojan War retelling. I am not so pleased about the bizarre way they decided to handle Achilles, Patroclus, and Briseis. Iliad-Briseis is a slave. Iliad-Achilles is a rapist. It's fine. David, it's fine. Nobody was going to call you a misogynist.

All of Us are Dead — 9/10 — Pointed criticism of the Korean government disguised as a fun zombie show. Especially poignant if you read up about Sewol before watching. 

Someone Has to Die — 6/10 — 144 minutes of mediocre drama followed by 8 minutes of the most spectacular television that Netflix has ever or will ever produce.

What We Do In the Shadows — 7/10 — Pansexual vampires, what's not to love?

Gentleman Jack — 3/10 — I do not care about mines or finance; I cannot stress this enough. Had a very pro-capitalism and pro-industrialism take which I understand the reasoning behind but dislike nonetheless.

A Very English Scandal — 9/10 — Watched this with my father who kept saying "I remember that" after every scene, but otherwise very enjoyable. I wish the government had kept sending out NICs because I can never find my number when I need it.

This is Going to Hurt — 8/10 — Yeah, it did. 

Good Omens — 5/10 — Twee in that very specific, late 90s/early 2000s British media way.

Bridgerton (Season 2) — 4/10 — Better than the first but that was a very low bar to clear. My personal theory is that they're pushing back the Benedict season because they can't decide whether they want to make him bi or not. 

The Gilded Age — 4/10 — It's just...he's just doing Downton Abbey again. This is the script for Downton Abbey except the token gay man is rich this time. 

Our Flag Means Death — 10/10 — I am a fundamentally different person for having watched this show. 

Heartstopper — 4/10 — I see the appeal, but it's much too sweet for me. Felt like I was shovelling spoonfuls of sugar into my mouth the whole time.

Derry Girls (Season 3) — 7/10 — Liked most of it, but the ending felt very mawkish. 

First Kill — 5/10 — I need you to know how ready I was to love this. Lesbian vampires? Written by V.E Schwab? It just...the CGI sucked and you can absolutely tell that Schwab has never written for a visual medium before because of the sheer amount of voiceover that she seems to consider necessary at all times. It was actually distracting. 

The Sandman — 9/10 — Loved it on the whole, but there were a few misplaced comedic moments that really messed with the tone. 

Kingdom (Season 1) (2019) — 5/10 — Fine, just not really for me.

Plebs (Season 6) — 6/10 — I adore Plebs but it should've wrapped up a season or two before this. 

Ghosts (Season 4) — 5/10 — This one wasn't very funny to me but I can't pinpoint why.

Rings of Power — 5/10 — They uh...they certainly made some choices, didn't they?

House of the Dragon — 10/10 — This was so interesting in a character-writing sense. In their desperation to make the Blacks the unequivocal good guys, the writers made them all really dull except for maybe Daemon and Corlys. Even though a lot of the Greens are 'bad' people, probably because of that, they're just so much more compelling.

Young Royals (Season 2) — 7/10 — Not quite as good as the first but the cliffhanger made me very excited for a potential season 3. 

Stats

Out of 21 TV series watched, 17 fell into the green and purple categories giving me an overall score of 81%

All of this gives me a total total score of 53/78 or 68%. Did I do what I set out to do? Obviously not. But in my search for queer media to beef up my scores, I found some hidden gems that I probably wouldn't have glanced at otherwise. Maybe this extraordinarily long list has given you a few ideas too.

If you have any thoughts or would like to kick up an argument, feel free to send me a message detailing everything I got wrong. Otherwise I thank you dearly for reading, and wish that your upcoming holiday season be merry and gay. 

1913: A Year in the Life of the Romanov Sisters — February 15th-28th

 15th, Friday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Alexandra as Nicholas was with the Emir of Bukhara. Seamstresses came and the women tried on dresses, making Alexandra very tired. Olga rode in a sleigh with Princess Elizabeth Obolenskaya. Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went skiing by the White Tower with Nicholas. Maria had a music lesson. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra while Tatiana had tea upstairs. Grigory Rasputin visited and Tatiana and Alexei came downstairs to join him and the rest of the family in the Maple Room. Rasputin told Olga that she could "rule like the tsarinas did in the past." Tatiana had a French lesson, then a music lesson. Maria and Anastasia had a French lesson, then did homework. Maria and Anastasia had dinner upstairs. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Nicholas read aloud in the evening. Anna Vyrubova visited. Olga and Tatiana went to bed at 10pm.

16th, Saturday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna. Olga rode in a sleigh with Elizabeth Obolenskaya. Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went for a walk with Nicholas and Olga Alexandrovna, then all above went sledding by the White Tower. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. At 6:30pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went with Nicholas, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna to vsenoshnaya at the Feodorovsky Cathedral. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. All above watched The Election of Tsar Mikhail followed by some more lighthearted films. Tatiana went to bed at 11:45pm while Olga went to bed at 12:30am.

17th, Sunday:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went with Elizaveta Feodorovna to obednya at the Feodorovsky Cathedral. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Prince Ioann Konstantinovich. They then went to the Alexander Palace chapel where an obednitza was performed with The Ikon of the Pochaevskaya Mother of God. At 2:07pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went into St. Petersburg with Elizabeth Obolenskaya. They first visited Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, then Olga Alexandrovna. At 3:30pm M.L Tsigern-Shternberg, Anatoly Fedyushkin, and Olga's crush Alexander Shvedov arrived. They sat around for half an hour until 4pm when Alexander Leuchtenberg [?], Sasha, Kolya and Nadya Leuchtenberg, Zoya Steckel, Princess Irina Alexandrovna, Nikolai Rodionov, S.S Klyucharev, R. Shangin, and Nikolai Kulikovsky arrived. They had tea at two tables, Olga sat with Alexander Shvedov and was "very, very happy." They played games in the parlour and hide and seek in the downstairs drawing-room. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia left at 7pm, then had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Ioann Konstantinovich. At 9pm Olga and Tatiana went with Nicholas to the St. Petersburg city hall to watch a Red Cross performance of The Eternal Love. The play ended at exactly 12am. 

Anastasia taking a selfie in the girls' bathroom at the Alexander Palace, early 1913

18th, Monday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Alexandra and Elizaveta Feodorovna. They then skied down the hill by the White Tower with Nicholas. Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia* had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria had tea alone. Maria had a music lesson, then did homework. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Elizaveta Feodorovna, and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich. Maria and Anastasia had dinner upstairs. 

19th, Tuesday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Olga sat with Alexandra in the afternoon. At 4pm the family travelled to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg for obednitza—Grigory Rasputin was there. They then moved into the Winter Palace. Olga and Tatiana had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria and Anastasia had tea with Alexei. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria and Anastasia had dinner with Alexei. Olga Alexandrovna visited and sat with Olga and Tatiana. They listened to music through the telephone [probably a performance at one of the theatres]. 

20th, Wednesday:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia rode in a sleigh with Catherine Schneider down the Nevsky and Morskoy Streets, then the waterfront where they saw the Standart as well as Nikolai Sablin and Nikolai Rodionov. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, Elizaveta Feodorovna, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Maria stayed home in the afternoon. At about 3pm Olga and Tatiana went with Nicholas to a molebna at the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. They returned at 4pm. Maria Feodorovna visited Alexandra and Maria. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Olga Alexandrovna. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Alexandra and Elizaveta Feodorovna. 

21st, Thursday**:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia walked around the garden. At 12:15pm the family went in a procession to Kazan Cathedral for molebna. They returned at 1:30pm. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Maria Feodorovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna—Alexandra was resting. At 3:45pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia attended a baisemain reception with Alexandra [presumably also the other Romanov women]. They all wore court dresses, Olga and Tatiana's had trains for the first time. Tatiana was nervous and had a headache. It ended at 5:30pm. Maria and Anastasia had tea at the children's monastery [?]. Tatiana rested and had a temperature of 38.6°C so went to bed early. Olga had dinner with Nicholas and Elizaveta Feodorovna, then sat with Alexandra. 

22nd, Friday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 38.2°C so stayed in bed, but was visited by Olga Alexandrovna. At 11am Olga attended a reception with various members of the extended Romanov family. Maria and Anastasia walked around the garden. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Maria Feodorovna, Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, and Duke Peter of Oldenburg. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went for a walk with Nicholas and Alexei. Tatiana briefly went downstairs to greet Alexandra. Olga had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria Feodorovna. Maria [possibly also Anastasia?] had tea with Alexei, Prince Nikita Alexandrovich, Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich, Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich, and Prince Vasily Alexandrovich. Tatiana had tea in bed and had a temperature of 38.1°C. Olga spoke to Nikolai Sablin on the telephone. Maria took a bath with Alexandra in the swimming pool-tub. Maria had dinner with Nicholas [presumably so did Olga and Anastasia]. At 8:15pm Olga, Nicholas, and Alexandra went to the Mariinsky Theatre and watched the opera A Life For the Tsar. Tatiana came downstairs to see them off. Alexandra left after the first act as she felt unwell. They returned to the Winter Palace at 11:30pm.

23rd, Saturday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 38°C so stayed in bed, but was visited by Olga Alexandrovna, Anna Vyrubova, and Nicholas. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia walked around the garden with Nicholas. They then attended a baisemain reception for ladies-in-waiting with Maria Feodorovna. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas and Maria Feodorovna. Maria [possibly also Olga and Anastasia] went for a walk with Nicholas. Irina Alexandrovna, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, and Prince Feodor Alexandrovich came by. Olga and Irina Alexandrovna had tea with Tatiana in her room. Maria and Anastasia had tea with Andrei Alexandrovich, Feodor Alexandrovich, and Alexei.*** Tatiana read in bed. Olga spoke to Nikolai Sablin on the telephone. Maria and Anastasia went to Catherine Schneider's rooms. Olga and Maria had dinner with Nicholas [Anastasia probably had dinner with Alexei]. Tatiana had dinner in bed. Maria and Anastasia took a bath in the swimming pool-tub. At 9:15pm Olga, Nicholas, and Alexandra went to the Assembly of the Nobility, after going up to say goodbye to Tatiana who was supposed to go. There were prayers, speeches, and bread and salt were served. Olga danced the polonaise with Count Emmanuel Emmanuelovich Sievers, a quadrille with Zinoviev, a mazurka with Oleg. K., and other dances with "lots of officers." Alexandra left halfway through. Olga and Nicholas left at 11:45pm. Tatiana was diagnosed with typhus. 

Ball at the Assembly of the Nobility Building in St Petersburg on 23 February 1913 by Dmitri Kardovsky c. 1915

24th, Sunday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 39.2°C and a headache. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas, then had breakfast with him. At 2pm Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went with Olga Alexandrovna to her house. M.L Tzigern-Shternberg, Skvortsov, and Alexander Shvedov went with them. Nikolai Sablin, S.S Klyucharev, G. of Leuchtenberg****, Sasha, Nadya, Kolya, Irina Alexandrovna, Zoya Steckel, Nikolai Zarnikau, R. Shangin, and Nikolai Kulikovsky arrived later. They played turkey, all-of-Petersburg, slap-on-hands, and rope. At tea Olga sat between Nikolai Sablin and Alexander Shvedov. Olga spoke to Alexandra on the telephone. The group then played hide and seek in the dark. They returned at 6pm. Maria and Anastasia had dinner together. Olga got changed and then went to Alexandra's rooms, together they went down to the malachite room. They had dinner with the rest of the family in the Georgievsky Hall. There was music and the dinner went on until 9pm. Alexandra lay on a sofa for much of the evening. Anna Vyrubova visited. Olga went to bed at 10:30pm. 

25th, Monday:

The family began fasting today. Olga spent the morning sitting by Alexandra's bed. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to church at 11:30am. They had breakfast with Nicholas, Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna, Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich, and Prince Konstantin Bagration of Mukhrani. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia walked with Nicholas on the roof and in the garden. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.4°C but her headache wasn't as bad. Maria Feodorovna and Xenia Alexandrovna came to visit her. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Alexandra and Anna Vyrubova. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Anna Vyrubova, and Konstantin Bagration. Olga Alexandrovna visisted. Maria and Anastasia swam in the pool-tub while Olga Alexandrovna, Alexandra, Nicholas, and Olga watched. They then sat and did handiwork. Olga went to bed at about 11pm.

26th, Tuesday:

Tatiana was visited by Nicholas and had a temperature of 39.1°C. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. The above then had breakfast with Paul Alexandrovich. At 2pm the family went to a panikhida for Alexander III at the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. They returned to the Winter Palace with Maria Feodorovna, Olga Alexandrovna, Xenia Alexandrovna, and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. At 3pm they returned to Tsarskoe Selo and moved back to the Alexander Palace. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to vsenoshnaya with Nicholas. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Nicholas read aloud in the evening.

27th, Wednesday:

Lessons. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.7°C and was visited by Olga several times during the day. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Zhitkevich. From 2pm to 4:30pm Olga, Maria, and Anastasia began building an ice tower with Nicholas while Alexei watched from a carriage. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea and then dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Anna Vyrubova visited in the evening.

28th, Thursday:

Lessons. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.1°C. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Count Grabbe. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia continued to build the ice tower with Nicholas. Tatiana was visited by Nicholas for a while before tea. Olga [possibly also Anastasia] had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra. Maria had tea alone, then a music lesson. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to vsenoshnaya with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexei. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Count Grabbe. Tatiana had a bath. Olga went to bed after 10pm.

Maria, Anastasia, and Olga with officers at Olga Alexandrovna's house, early 1913

*It's difficult to say what Tatiana and Anastasia did for tea this day as Anastasia has no diary entries and isn't mentioned by anyone else, while Tatiana's entry for this day wasn't published.

**The Romanov Tercentenary celebrations began on this day, as it was the day of Tsar Mikhail's election in 1613.

***My best guess based on conflicting descriptions.

****I've previously listed G. of Leuchtenberg as George Maximilianovich as I couldn't find anyone else matching that description, though he died in 1912. A mystery man, I suppose. 

References:

Azar, H. (2015) Journal of a Russian Grand Duchess: Complete Annotated 1913 Diary of Olga Romanov, Eldest Daughter of the Last Tsar. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Azar, H. and Nicholson, A. (2017) Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913-1918. Yardley, P.A: Westholme Publishing.

Azar, H. and Madru, A. (2017) 1913 Diary of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna. Amazon Publishing.

Дневник Николая II 1913. (2007). Available at: http://www.rus-sky.com/history/library/diaris/1913.htm. (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

lastromanovs (2020). 683-1-116-4об. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/149552988@N02/49164795517/in/album-72157712049210873/ (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

Wikipedia (2020). File: Ball in St. Petersburg Assembly of the Noble 1913.jpg. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ball_in_St._Petersburg_Assembly_of_the_Noble_1913.jpg (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

lastromanovs (2020). Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/149552988@N02/49164065898/in/album-72157712049210873/ (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne — a Very Negative Review

Imagine, if you will, the most average book ever written. A book attempting nothing that hasn't already been done to death, a book that challenges nobody, a book with no surprises save just how bad it is. That book is The House of Special Purpose.

I'll be separating my review into three sections:

Things I Didn't Like About the Book as a Book, Historical Inaccuracies, and Characterisation. Please do note the absence of a Things I Liked category. It wouldn't have been worth typing out the heading.

1. Things I Didn't Like About the Book as a Book

This book is, simply put, boring. Considering the source material, that fact might be an achievement in and of itself. 

The main problem is that a lot of things happen but the writing is such that you don't realise anything has happened until it's already over. For example, the inciting incident is our protagonist Georgy preventing the assassination of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. I don't remember much about this sequence beyond slight confusion as I struggled to parse what exactly Georgy was doing and how he possibly had the time and room to do it in. You may think that this was a deliberate effort to portray the panic and disorientation that such a situation would cause. I can assure you it was not. 

A consequence of this is that while hypothetically interesting events are left, right, and centre of the narrative, they remain only hypothetically so. This might not be such a problem in the hands of a more skilled writer, but Boyne is evidently not that writer. Plot-driven stories are perfectly valid and that seems to be what Boyne was going for here, but the trouble is that you need to be able to write a plot.

He also doesn't seem to know how to write characters...at all. You don't get attached to any of them because they are either so bland or so inconsistent that they don't feel anything like real people. What can I tell you about Georgy? Well, he's nice. Except for one scene wherein he is the most arbitrarily cruel character you have ever read about. He has old-fashioned values, which we are explicitly told is a trait of his before ever getting to see it in action. 

Another problem it had—though this is tangentially related to the main one—is that there are too many improbable situations waved away for the sake of the story. In historical fiction, such scenes are to be expected and even encouraged. But, as Boyne has discovered, there is such a thing as too much fiction. Why on earth would both Alexandra and Anastasia be walking (separately) unguarded and alone through Mogilev at night? How could Maria possibly orchestrate a full-on affair with a random guard who her parents barely know and do not trust? Most egregiously, in what universe would it be possible for Anastasia to sneak out of the Winter Palace and wander around St. Petersburg?

My next problems are, I suspect, the result of personal preference so read ahead with that caveat firmly in your mind. 

Boyne does the thing I despise where the author sprinkles in words from another language in order to make the book feel more authentic. The only thing this achieves is to draw the reader out of the book and make them wonder whether, as the rest of the book is not explicitly in Russian, we are to imagine that all of this is being conducted in English. 

Next, and this problem is three-pronged, names. Boyne is somewhat inconsistent in how he chooses to spell names. He anglicises Nikolai to Nicholas, Nikolaevna to Nicolaevna, and Maria to Marie. This is all well and good, but it does beg the question of why he chooses to leave other names such as Daniil or even Georgy in their transliterated forms when perfect English equivalents exist.

I also suspect that Boyne doesn't quite grasp Russian names. The protagonist's sisters are only ever referred to by the diminutives of their given names: Asya, Liska, and Talya. At first, I thought this was to show how close he was to them, but after reading the rest of this book I have the sneaking suspicion that Boyne thinks these are the given names. 

One character has the patronymic "Vladyavich" which would imply that his father's given name was Vladya; a diminutive of Vladislav. Very bizarre, but not necessarily out of the realms of possibility. I think, however, that Boyne means to imply that this character's father was Vladislav and not Vladya because of the even more bizarre names possessed by two other characters: Kolek Boryavich and Sergei Stasyovich (who is incidentally Maria's guard love). Not only is Kolek a very strange name in and of itself, but his patronymic is not real. We are told explicitly that Kolek's father is called Borys and so his patronymic should be Borisovich (or Borysovich as Boyne insists on spelling it). Stasyovich, if we follow the line of logic set out by these, is in Boyne-world supposed to come from Stanislav but in reality would imply Stas', a diminutive of Stanislav. I'm beginning to think that Boyne is allergic to research.

Another peculiar example is the nickname "Pasha" belonging to our protagonist, whose given name you might remember is Georgy. Pasha is a common diminutive of Pavel and so an odd thing to call a Georgy. The justification is that Pasha means "small." You may note that Pasha means small because Pavel means small and not because it's simply a word independent of anything. This leads me onto the third prong.

Georgy, a peasant boy from nowhere-ville with zero education, seems to know the meaning of every name off the top of his head. Zoya means life, Pasha means small, Arina means peace, Georgy means farmer—all this and more he dutifully rattles off over 493 pages. Does any of it have any bearing on the plot? Not really, no. Boyne would just like us to know that he did some googling before sitting down to write. In fact, the very last words of the book are explaining the meaning of Zoya which in some ways felt quite fitting—it at least let me get one last eye roll in.

2. Historical Inaccuracies

Oh, where to start?

The first problem makes itself apparent quite literally on page 1 when Georgy informs us that he was born in Kashin, a town in the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. What is the Grand Duchy of Muscovy? Well, you'd be forgiven for asking given that it hasn't existed since 1547. And this is not Georgy showing off his splendid education yet again, as he later tells someone that he's from the Grand Duchy of Muscovy and that person responds as though this is a perfectly normal thing to say and not the equivalent of me describing myself as hailing from Mercia. What Boyne meant is the Moscow Governate, but I suspect he was too tired to find out after looking up all those names.

We continue with the theme of location for my next point (which is really two points, but it's probably best to put them together). This book begins in 1915, some time into the War and a year that the Imperial family spent almost entirely at the Alexander Palace. Reading this book, however, you wouldn't know it. Much of it takes place in the Winter Palace—a residence that Nicholas II and his family barely used at the best of times, nevermind during the War. Throughout 1915 and 1916, they are described to be taking their usual holidays to Livadia and aboard the Standart "as if the world was as it had ever been." The Standart was, in fact, placed in dry dock when the War broke out and wasn't removed until long after the 1917 revolution. Similarly, the last time Nicholas II and his family stayed at Livadia Palace was before the War in 1914. I can understand that Boyne wanted to give a little variety to his settings, but to do so and then put it forward as evidence for the Romanovs' nonchalance towards their country's suffering is perhaps a little deceitful.

My next few points are comparatively minor, but worth mentioning all the same. Firstly, the Grand Duchesses are described as having all their lessons as a group of four. In reality, they had most lessons individually with occasional lessons being taken in their pairs (Olga & Tatiana and Maria & Anastasia). The only teacher ever mentioned in the book is Monsieur Gilliard (known as Zhilik within the family) who taught all the children French and oversaw Tsarevich Alexei's entire education. It's strongly implied that he was the children's only teacher which would be rather a lot for even a man of Gilliard's capabilities.

Now we come to Eira. Eira was a yappy terrier who belonged to the Empress and who, as Boyne correctly characterises her, was little liked by others. Unfortunately, I must now revoke this singular historical accuracy point because she died in 1906 and was therefore not present at the Ipatiev House, as Boyne claims.

On the subject of the Ipatiev House, Boyne has much insight to offer. Apparently, it had an "utter lack of security" with both the front door and the gate being kept open at all times. Georgy, and probably the reader, wonders why the family "didn't simply come downstairs and flee." The windows were seemingly not whitewashed in July as Georgy sees the Empress through one of them, and then Maria is allowed to simply waltz out onto the street in search of Eira who has run out of the aforementioned open front door. Georgy even asks Maria how she was allowed out and she informs him that "They give us as much freedom as we want." Need I even comment?

Later that same day, Alexei comes wandering out to meet Georgy at the front gate and proclaims that he "has been quite well." In reality, Alexei suffered a haemophilic attack several months earlier at Tobolsk and was unable to walk for the rest of his life.

There is a claim made by Anastasia that "My parents went to a different party every night of the week" before the War broke out. This is obviously an exaggeration in order to get across the point she's making, but even a scaled-back version of this claim would not be true. Alexandra hated parties because they gave her headaches and she avoided them as much as possible—part of the reason the aristocracy hated her so much was because throwing parties was considered one of the Empress' duties and Alexandra didn't fulfil it.

3.  Characterisation

Let's do this one from best to worst. That way, I can pretend that this review has any sense of structure and coherence.

I've already spoken a little about Georgy, but let's dig deeper. As I mentioned before, he's a generally mild character with seemingly no real opinions about or attachments to anything beyond his love for Anastasia and by extension her family. The biggest problem I had with him (and, for that matter, the plot) is that I cannot imagine Anastasia falling for such a nothing person. This man has the personality of microwave porridge. And yet, somehow, he is also simultaneously The Worst.

At one point, his sister Asya turns up in St. Petersburg. She explains that she's hoping he'll be able to get her a job at the palace, and that she's been living in a fairly bad situation in the city but will return home should he be unable to find her anything. Asya's entire characterisation up until this point has been how much she wants to live in St. Petersburg and, if she can't be a part of it, to at least be adjacent to high society. He has been hearing all his life about how much she wants this. So Georgy agrees to ask around, and they part ways. He speaks to the head of staff at the Winter Palace and she does have an opening for a maid, so he puts his sister forward. But when he meets up with Asya, he decides to tell her that there was nothing available which forces her to go back to Kashin. Why does he do this? Georgy doesn't really have an explanation. The real reason is, of course, so that Boyne can wave away the question of why none of Georgy's siblings are ever seen again after the first third of the book. But it means that Boyne has now written a character who does awful things like that for no real reason and never follows up on this trait. You might say that real people do mean things for no reason all the time in real life, and you'd be right. But this is fiction—and fiction has to make sense.

With one (almost) irrelevant exception, the rest of the main cast is comprised of the Romanov family who are accurate to life with wildly varying degrees of success.

I think the most well done was Alexei. In fact, beyond a few grievances with how and when he gets injured, I'd say that Alexei is pretty much perfect. I don't really know how Boyne managed to achieve this; the entire time I was reading I kept waiting for him to write something horribly un-Alexei-like but I don't think he ever did. There, he can have back that point I took away for crimes against Eira.

I'm going to award second best to Olga, but don't be fooled! This does not mean that Olga was done well—I would go so far as to say that she wasn't done at all. She gets two lines, and neither betray much about what she's like. The first is something about Georgy looking tired, while the second is complaining about having to become a nurse. Olga appears a few times in the background of other scenes but doesn't really do anything and so unfortunately that's all I can comment on.

Third place goes to the Emperor himself, Nicholas II. I believe that Boyne has generally portrayed him well, though there are a few...hitches, I suppose you could say. First, book Nicholas seems quite happy to divulge his innermost thoughts to some eighteen-year-old in his guard. Georgy doesn't really do anything to make himself a particular friend to Nicholas and never says much of consequence during these little monologues—that would require Georgy to have opinions, and we don't want that. Nicholas is also very exasperated by his wife, Alexandra, and Boyne claims that "their relationship had begun to disintegrate." Anyone who has read their wartime letters can tell you this is exactly the opposite of the truth; I had to stop at one point because they're almost painfully sentimental. Most, if not all, interactions they have throughout the book involve some sort of argument and it's made obvious that Nicholas is quite tired of her.

Alexandra herself suffers from the usual charges set against her by historians who like to build easy, one-dimensional caricatures out of those they study. Boyne's Alexandra is hysterical, frigid, and unkind. When she isn't shouting at staff she's ignoring them, when she isn't lecturing her children she's tricking them into caring for her. Her family all dislike her and seem to try to avoid her as much as possible. If you know me, you know how strongly I feel about this abhorrent treatment that Alexandra has been given over the years. It's reductive, misogynistic, and frankly betrays a lack of research. If she was truly this awful, selfish, cold-hearted person then why would she have so many friends? Why would her husband speak of her with nothing but adoration? Why would her children spend so much of their time in her company? Reading her scenes in this book I was certainly disappointed, but I can't say that I was surprised.

Now, Boyne's portrayals of Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia are very much a race to the bottom.

Anastasia is our love interest for this book and consequently a nothing character. Not quite so bad as Georgy, but certainly far from good. I can see almost nothing of the real vivacious, high-spirited Anastasia in this book Anastasia. Oh and, surprise, she somehow manages to survive her family's murder by simply walking out of those aforementioned open front gates. Truly, an original and well-written twist.

Maria starts out by being quite mean and stuck up, but halfway through does some sort of spontaneous 180 when I assume Boyne deigned to read her Wikipedia article. The only thing she does of consequence is have that affair with the splendidly named Sergei Stasyovich, because in Boyne-world being a romantic translates to going against your entire belief system to have a little fun. Poor Maria.

Without a doubt, the worst of all was Tatiana. I think it's actually impossible that Boyne did even the tiniest amount of research into her, and if he did then he actively decided to go against everything he read. 

Our introduction to book Tatiana is her teasing Anastasia for defending Georgy against one of Maria's mean comments about him. What does Boyne write? "'Our sister is in love,' cried Tatiana." It was at this point I knew all was lost. In real life, Tatiana was as shy as her mother and wouldn't have dared to say something like that in front of a stranger the very first time they met—in the middle of a lesson, no less! She then goes on to discuss Georgy as though he isn't there, going so far as to call him a "simpleton."

Halfway through the book, during a supposed mid-war stay at Livadia Palace, Alexandra suggests that she along with Olga and Tatiana train to be nurses. Real Tatiana was dutiful and eager to help in any way she could during the War, and regardless adored her mother so that she would've done anything she asked without complaint. So what does Boyne write? "I turned to look at the Empress's two eldest daughters, who had both grown a little pale at the mention of their names [...] 'Father?' began Tatiana, but he was already nodding his head..."

Boyne then appears to mix up Olga and Tatiana, describing Tatiana thus: "She looked pale and had lost weight since her nursing duties had begun." Olga, in fact, suffered from what might be called depression while she worked as a nurse and later suffered a nervous breakdown. Tatiana thrived. She did not, for example, say things like "There are mornings when I wake up and wish that I might fall ill myself in order not to have to be there." She also talks about how little the doctors seem to care about rank—something that I find indescribably funny given that one of the most well-known anecdotes about her (one that was included in her 2013 Wikipedia article, I checked) concerns how she complained about not being allowed to boil silk and breathe carbolic acid on account of her age and rank. 

I shall leave you with a quote that Boyne attributes to Tatiana while discussing her nursing, but which I think would be far more suited to describing how he writes historical fiction:

"Oh but I'm terrible at it!"