A review by ravensandlace
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

slow-paced

5.0

Title: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

Author: Robert K. Massie

Genre: Biography

Format: own paperback book

Series: NA

Star Rating: 5 stars

Please note that this is a review from 2016. At that time, I did not keep track of trigger warnings so apologies. Young Lacy did not know what she was doing back then. 

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. I could NOT get enough of it! Honestly, I have never devoured a biography as I have with this one. This book was so easy to read. It felt like I was reading a novelized version of her life. Russian autocracy is often hard to follow because a lot of the names are the same. But Massie made it incredibly easy to understand who was who. I did not feel confused at all during the duration of this book. I probably would have read this book in a day if life hadn't gotten in the way. Curse having to work to buy books and live.

Okay, so this book is about Catherine the Great. She was an empress of Russia and honestly one of the best ones (that I have read about, anyway). She was just amazing. She tried so hard to get rid of serfdom in Russia. It didn't work but the fact is that she tried and knew that it was wrong. She tried to get the people of Russia involved in governing their country. She just tried to do so many good things for Russia. No wonder the people voted to have her name Catherine the Great.

I felt really bad for her though. She wasn't loved as a child. Her mother didn't want anything to do with her until she was to be considered for marriage to Paul, the future emperor. Her husband was not cool to put it nicely. He was just a big baby, for lack of better words, who demanded that things be done HIS way. But gathering from what I read about his childhood, it didn't sound very good. I'm amazed he wasn't worse than what he was. But still, he could have treated Catherine better than he did. Flaunting his lovers and trying to make Catherine as miserable as he was will not win sympathy points in my book.

Also, Empress Elizabeth was a piece of work. Taking away Catherine's children so young. That is so damaging to mother and child. It's no wonder Paul turned out the way he did. I didn't like the way Elizabeth treated Catherine just because she was young and beautiful and Elizabeth was getting older. But unfortunately, that kind of thing happens. There was so much competition in the Russian court and, let’s be real, any court. That was just how things were. 

As I mentioned above, this book was written so remarkably well. Robert Massie is the master of biographies. He incorporates so much information without it being information overload. I loved that he gave little back histories of each person who was involved in Catherine's life in some way. That brought the characters to life, especially since I don't know much about Russian history after the last tsar. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to anybody who is a fan of history. Massie has a way of making biographies feel like narratives. It didn't feel like I was reading a biography. I felt like I was reading a narrative. I always recommend this book when people are looking for a starter biography book. It was an easy book to read, despite its large size. I plan on reading more biographies by Massie, regardless of what they are about.