ILS 593
Genre Assignment 2
Book 1
GENRE: Historical Fiction
BOOK TITLE: Abundance, a Novel of Marie Antoinette
AUTHOR: Sena Jeter Naslund
PUBLICATION INFORMATION: 2007, Harper Perennial, 592 pages
AWARDS: Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards-Best Historical Novels 2006
SETTING: 18th Century France
MAIN CHARACTERS: Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI
OTHER CHARACTERS: Various members of the Royal family and friends
PLOT SUMMARY: Abundance begins with Marie, an innocent 14 year old, leaving her home in Austria to begin her new life as the wife of Louis Auguste, soon to be King Louis the XVI. Life in the Royal Court, including intimate life with the King, and the events of the French Revolution are told exclusively from Marie’s point of view.
This book portrays Marie as someone who means well. She is not a saint, but in Naslund’s portrayal, she has been wrongly accused by her enemies of many crimes she never committed. The book very much humanizes her. In Abundance, Marie tries to empathize with the common people of France. She is a wife who tries to please as well as help her husband, and a loving mother who loses two children during her lifetime. In many ways, she has very little control of her destiny. But that doesn’t stop her from fighting to change traditions she believes are wrong or old fashioned.
APPEAL: This book will appeal to readers of historical fiction and people may also appeal to readers of romance fiction. Naslund writes very descriptive accounts of the Royal Court, and focuses a lot of attention on Marie’s feelings about the events of the Revolution as well as her relationships with friends and family.
REFERENCES:
Moyer, J.A., & Stover, K.M. (2010). The Readers' advisory handbook. Chicago : American Library Association.
Naslund, S.J. (2007). Abundance. New York: Harper Perennial.
Novelist- http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=noh&tg=UI&an=147269&site=novelist-live
Saricks, J.G. (2009). The Readers' advisory guide to genre fiction: 2nd ed.. Chicago: American Library Association.
