Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird

 With an extraordinary woman like Victoria, her biography of her life is bound to be fascinating to read. I really don't know where to begin with this big book, I do however want to say how much I loved reading this book. Julia Baird has a way of giving you all this information without feeling like you're overloaded. It's also written from the beginning of Victoria's life to the end, so it's not all over the place and hard to follow.

If you are interested in Victoria, or just curious, I highly recommend picking up Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird. Don't be intimidated by how big the book is. I could not put this book down and I devoured it.

After a few chapters in I instantly messaged my sister from another mister Tera, that she had to pick this book up immediately. She got it the next day and we buddy read it. It's one of those books you need to talk to someone while you're reading it.

During my read I wrote down a lot of notes, things that either piqued my interest or things that I wanted to look more into.

Because there was so many notes, I might later on do blog posts for things that I want to look more into, like for instance the scandal of Lady Flora Hastings. That poor woman and what she went through. 

Actually, there are a lot of instances that really made my blood boil when it came to girls and women. That, is definitely for another post.

I don't want to go too much into every detail of the book, because I really do think you need to read it and experience it yourself, but I want to mention a few things.

As much as I appreciated Albert and how he ran things, I do think that Victoria became way too dependent in him. I do think this has a lot to do with how women were perceived as a married woman. This is horrible to say, but we were seen as a mans property. He was our master and were basically his slave.

Now this power dynamic was strange in Victoria and Albert's relationship; she was Queen of England, head of the British Empire, while he was the husband who technically in their terms, supposed to be head of the house.

As an independent woman, I just wanted to see Victoria be that strong woman who doesn't let men walk over her and belittle her (no pun intended).

I also want to definitely mention John Brown. After reading Julia Bairds' notes at the end of the book, I am so happy she kept information about him and what was left in Victoria's coffin in the book.

I do believe that Victoria loved John Brown, whether that is in a romantic way or just friendship, I personally don't think that matters.

She was so dependent of people, it was good to have someone close to her to bring her out of the gloom after Albert died.

There is so much more to unpack not just with Victoria's life, but also with the world during her reign, that I will definitely (hopefully if I remember) to make posts about it in the future.

Like I said before, I highly recommend picking up Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird. It's an amazing book that I will definitely be going back again and again and recommending to anyone who I come across.

Until next time, happy reading...