BOOK REVIEW: WE TWO

Title: We Two - Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals
Author: Gillian Gill
Number of Pages: 480 (Closer to 380 of actual reading)
Number of Stars I'm Giving It: 3.5

Let me start off  by saying I think its mean to name your daughter Gillian Gill - or Gill Gill for short.  At least she grew up to be a very successful person.

Having finished this book I still have very mixed feelings about it.  There were parts I loved, and parts I hated.  I do feel a little cheated that I read the entire thing and I won't even be getting any college credits for it.

The first 30% or so of this book I thought was fascinating.   The way in which Victoria was raised was extremely harsh and sad.  It is amazing that someone who was never left alone could actually be so lonely.  I was impressed that although she had such a lack of independence and nurturing love as a child, she grew to be a very powerful leader.

Albert at first I thought was a very impressive person.  The more I read about him though I feel like he had a superiority complex.  He seemed to be a doormat for Victoria and his father because he wouldn't dare stand up to them, but to make up for that he tried to walk all over everybody else.  He came across as very pompous and arrogant.   The thing I like most about Albert was a very loving father, that is if his children met his high standards.

Where I have my most mixed feelings are in the general culture at the time.  I guess in my mind I always imagined life in those times more as a Jane Austin novel than actual fact.  I had an image of most people being God fearing and moral people.  It was a time I envied and wanted to see for myself - all of the true gentlemen and ladies. I was a little disgusted when I read this book.  It seems that affairs and mistresses were the norm.  Infidelity was to be expected and abandonment of a mistress and her children rampant.  I don't know about the lower classes, but it seemed to me that if you were rich, all rules of morals were thrown out the window.  At least Albert was a faithful husband to his wife.
It made me crazy to think that most or all of the European royalty was related and that they were all allotted money and services from the day they were born until the day they died, regardless of if they accomplished anything with their own lives. 
Reading about the medical beliefs at the time made me cringe.  Bloodletting and sleeping in freezing rooms for good health.  Children eating only bread and milk with very little meat. Victoria had 9 children, one almost every 2 years.  She hated being pregnant and I don't blame her at all.  Her husband was unsympathetic and thought she complained for no reason.  She only had chloroform with her last 2 children, and even then it was considered a sin, but she was the queen so who was going to say anything to her?  The hemophiliac son they had was so interesting.  They just tried to ignore medical fact thinking that if they didn't acknowledge it then it wouldn't be true.
It disturbed me how much she disliked her children.  She didn't find joy with them and was even extremely jealous of them when Albert would spend time with them.  It was striking that after her hate for her own mother's "neglect" that she would turn around and do almost the same thing to her children.  She would openly criticize them.  I lost a lot of respect for Victoria in this area.  They had multiple vacation homes, and yachts.  She had an endless supply of money, but I wouldn't trade any day in my life for hers.
I can't imagine being someone lower than the queen at those times.  It must have been unbearable.  Some of her servants never had a day off in their lives.  And most of them worked 14 to 16 hour days 5 to 7 days a week.  How important is a queen that so many people should give up their entire lives to her? I find it disturbing, and it made me proud to think of the beliefs that America was founded on.  A country with no king...I hope it can continue to be strong so that we don't ever have to be in times of oppression like these again.  Victoria was a good queen to her people and she and Albert spawned most of the European royalty even down to today.
I recommend this book if you want a taste of history, but don't expect a romance story wrapped up in it all.