The Family Romanov

A great read (listen)! Basically all I know about this era of Russian history is, humiliatingly enough, from the animated movie Anastasia, so I spent the whole book being like, but where's the talking bat??? j/k. I mean for real there's no talking bat in this book, but it's a very compelling historical narrative with great use of primary source documents. I liked that the audio version had other readers for the letters and journals. It kinda spiced things up.

It's also a great combination of humanizing the Romanov family and understanding how and why they were so cut off from the world, but also of how desperate the peasants were.

also MURDER.

Summary: This nonfiction novel chronicles the lives of Tsar Nicholas (Russia’s last tsar), his family, and the Russian people. It is a fascinating read that tells of the atrocities committed against the Russian people, the drama surrounding the royal family and their relationship to the mysterious Rasputin, and the uprising of the lower classes.