Customer Reviews

The Curse of the Romanovs

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

THE CURSE OF THE ROMANOVS by Staton Rabin is an absolutely spell-binding story of Alexei Romanov and the Russian Revolution.

The story begins in Russia in 1916, where Alexei Romanov is the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne. As a hemophiliac, Alexei cannot stop bleeding, and the only person who can seem to heal him is Father Grigory, otherwise known as Rasputin. So many of the Russian people despise Father Grigory and spread gossip about his drinking and womanizing, but Alexei's mother, the Tsarina, comforts Alexei by telling him that these are all lies and that Father Grigory is their dear friend.

Alexei believes his mother, until one night when he hears a conversation between his mother and Father Grigory that challenges everything he has been told. Not knowing where to turn, Alexei confides in his cousin, who decides to murder Father Grigory. But killing Father Grigory is not as easy as it appears, and when Alexei fears for his own life, he flees to the year 2010, using a method that Father Grigory himself taught Alexei.

In the future, Alexei meets a distant relative, Varda Rosenberg, who is currently working on a cure for hemophilia. When Alexei learns about the Russian Revolution and the fate of his family, he is determined to travel back to the past and rescue them from a horrible death at the hands of the Bolsheviks. With Varda's help, Alexei travels back into the past in a desperate attempt to save his family, his honor, and his way of life. But will he be able to change the course of history?

Staton Rabin somehow mixes the genres of science fiction and historical fiction to create a novel unlike any I have ever read. So much of the story is fact-based that you will find yourself believing every word. Rabin captures the voice of a young Alexei so well, as the book is written in diary form. At the end of the novel, author's notes clear up any misconceptions and separate fact from fiction.

So many stories have been written about the Romanov family, including the Disney movie Anastasia (Family Fun Edition w/Bartok the Magnificent). But Rabin's take on this famous story is so different than all of the others, it is definitely worth reading!

Reviewed by: Amber Gibson

This book is a work of art! It combines science fiction, non-fiction and fiction to create a wonderful tale, another perspective of the Romanovs! This book is not just for teens!

The story follows Alexi Romanov as he suffers from hemophilia, describes his family and "Our Friend" Rasputin, and eventually learns how to time travel to modern times where a cure for hemophilia is being researched by none other than Alexi's great-great-great-great-whatever cousin. He and his cousin then travel back in time again as they attempt to change history.

The "twists" of the story that were supposed to be shocking were instead predictable and silly. They also had no real significance to the overall story, and were instead more like side trivia than great revelations. On a positive note, the book appears to be well-researched. Almost all events from the Romanov Russia parts (except the obvious fantastical elements) of the book were based on actual events, and only a few were slightly altered.

Overall, The Curse of the Romanovs was a quick and interesting read. I would recommend the book to someone interested in starting an education on Romanov history, especially someone younger than myself who might appreciate the story part of the book more than I did.

As the Romanov family is one of favorite subjects in history I picked up this book. While it was a great story (historical fiction account), I didn't like that the author towards the end of the book portrayed Rasputin in a good light. However, the author did a great job and should be commended on all her hard work researching the family and everything surrounding them during their time.

Thought it would be interesting to read a historical piece on the Romanov family and was horribly mistaken. Poorly written and grossly inaccurate. I understand it's fiction, but you can only distort the personalities of the family so far. Terrible book. Can't believe I wasted my money on this.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I had heard of Alexei Romanov before but I did not know much about him. I thought it was very interesting to learn about hemophilia, Alexei's disease. I liked reading the info in the back of the book. A gripping story,too. Staton Rabin does a great job combining imagination and reality.

We bought the Kindle version of this book specifically for the text-to-speech capabilities of the Kindle. However, it is not "readable" by the person it was purchased for. It is extremely disappointing that we did not notice that this feature had been disabled by the publisher until we had already paid for the book. I wish that Simon and Schuster would realize the short-sightedness of this policy. There is a large segment of the population who are not considered disabled enough to use talking book services, but who struggle with print for various reasons. The text-to-speech feature of the Kindle is a real breakthrough in allowing these people to have access to books, newspapers, and magazines. They are willing to pay for this! I can't imagine why the publishers would want to turn away these paying customers.