She gambles and she parties, throwing money at fashion and frivolities, and while she's always saying that she means well it's just so hard to overlook some of her poor decisions. She's an ignorant young woman, both naïve and inadequately educated, and her constant desire to be distracted from her problems by pretty things only reveal her character deficits. Marie is simultaneously sympathetic and unbearably obnoxious. These pretty little descriptions pop up like wildflowers in the spring, wildly out of control. I highly doubt that Marie Antoinette would be cataloging her assets in such a way when she's being changed by a crowd of other women in preparation for crossing from Austria to France.

“I try to shelter this delicate garden because my new hair seems frail and flimsy”.

“a neck rises up like a small lookout tower whose finial is the head”.

“two arms sprout from either side of a bodily cabinet”.

Four pages into the story, Marie Antoinette is admiring her naked body and the descriptions of it can best be described as fussy: But there are a lot of little moments that seem odd, or jarring. Sometimes, it works beautifully, as when she describes the beautiful palace of Versaille or the fashions of women at court. Her writing is lavish and pretty, full of rich descriptions and little flourishes.

Sena Jeter Naslund is an author who loves details. As the years pass, Marie Antoinette's kind heart and good intentions cannot save her from the wrath of revolutionaries determined to destroy the monarchy forever.

Marie Antoinette struggles to consummate her marriage with a husband unable to perform in bed, and she is ill-prepared when she becomes Queen of France before the age of twenty. Beginning with the ceremonial rebirth of Maria Antonia of Austria sheds her old identity as the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa and takes on the name Marie Antoinette, Abundance follows the girl as she marries her husband, the heir to the French throne, and begins her new life at the French court.

Abundance book marie antoinette