Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

I really like McRobbie's tone. I often find historical books such as this difficult to get through because the facts, though interesting, are presented so dryly. McRobbie does an excellent job presenting the facts in a humorous way that makes you want to keep reading. This book gives you the perfect taste of these princesses lives, but if you are doing a research paper or want to know in depth detail about the princesses, this is a better starting place than anything. Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot, but it's probably going to end up on my coffee table.… (mer)

Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Princess Behaving Badly is one of my favorite types of books – a nonfiction book that is written in a series of short vignettes, each focused on a different woman of aristocratic birth. What I really enjoyed most about this book versus some of my other favorites, like Doomed Queens and Lives of Extraordinary Women is how the author uses a very loose interpretation of the word “princess.”

The 30 “princesses” of Princesses Behaving Badly are grouped into 7 categories: Warriors, Usurpers, Schemers, Survivors, Partiers, Floozies and Madwomen. Each little story about the princess of choice is written like a tabloid entry which some people might not like, but I thought it a great way to poke fun at the media’s obsessions with princesses and the aristocracy. Some notable women are excluded, i.e. Lady Diana Spencer, but for the most part, I loved learning about different women who are not so widely covered by my extensive collection of notable women books.

Overall, I take books like this fairly lightly and do not interpret them to be in-depth and extensive portraits of troubled maidens or explanations for the princesses’ often weird and strange life choices. That’s what biographies are for and this book makes no pretentions about trying to be a serious piece of deeply researched literature on the lives of 30 women who caused a stir in the lives of others over the course of the last couple millennia.… (mer)