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Zoya
Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and World War I Europe, Zoya, young cousin to the Tsar, flees St. Petersburg to Paris to find safety. Her entire world forever changed, she faces hard times and joins the Ballet Russe in Paris. And then, when life is kind to her, Zoya moves on to a new and glittering life in New York. The days of ease are all too brief as the Depression strikes, and she loses everything yet again. It is her career, and the man she meets in the course of it, which ultimately save her, as she rebuilds her life through the war years and beyond. And it is her family that comes to mean everything to her. From the roaring twenties to the 1980's, Zoya remains a rare and spirited woman whose legacy will live on.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Danielle Steel
846 books14.8k followersDanielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's bestselling authors, with almost a billion copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include All That Glitters, Royal, Daddy's Girls, The Wedding Dress, The Numbers Game, Moral Compass, Spy, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Expect a Miracle, a book of her favorite quotations for inspiration and comfort; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children's books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 573 reviews
October 24, 2017
Una novela que es el reflejo de gran parte de un siglo convulsionado e inestable, mirado a través de los ojos de Zoya Ossupov, una joven aristócrata rusa que, después de la muerte de casi toda su familia y la abdicación de su primo, el zar Nicolás II, huye a Paris prácticamente con lo puesto, acompañada sólo de su abuela y uno de sus fieles sirvientes.
No es un libro del género romántico, por el contrario, yo lo clasificaría como narrativa histórica, ya que a través de casi 60 años junto a Zoya, vivenciaremos sucesos tan importantes como la revolución rusa, las dos guerras, la crisis económica del 29, los avances de la industrialización y se cruzarán en su camino grandes e influyentes personajes de la historia: líderes políticos y artistas, entre muchos otros.
Es una novela muy emotiva, sobre todo porque la vida de Zoya no fue fácil, incluso en los momentos de bonanza tuvo que hacer frente a duros reveses del destino. Cuando la terminé, me dejó una sensación muy melancólica.
Su pero es que tiene muy pocas páginas para todo lo que quiere contar; mientras leía sentía que apenas lograba atrapar un barniz del paso del tiempo e incluso, hacia el final, me parecía estar leyendo una crónica de los hechos más relevantes de la historia. Obviamente, así no se puede profundizar en los personajes, aunque, a pesar de todo, sí lograron traspasarme el dolor y el sentimiento de pérdida de seres queridos, de lugares, de otros tiempos...
Me recordó mucho El jinete de bronce, aunque, por supuesto, le falta mucho para estar a la altura de la maravillosa obra de Paullina Simons.
No es un libro del género romántico, por el contrario, yo lo clasificaría como narrativa histórica, ya que a través de casi 60 años junto a Zoya, vivenciaremos sucesos tan importantes como la revolución rusa, las dos guerras, la crisis económica del 29, los avances de la industrialización y se cruzarán en su camino grandes e influyentes personajes de la historia: líderes políticos y artistas, entre muchos otros.
Es una novela muy emotiva, sobre todo porque la vida de Zoya no fue fácil, incluso en los momentos de bonanza tuvo que hacer frente a duros reveses del destino. Cuando la terminé, me dejó una sensación muy melancólica.
Su pero es que tiene muy pocas páginas para todo lo que quiere contar; mientras leía sentía que apenas lograba atrapar un barniz del paso del tiempo e incluso, hacia el final, me parecía estar leyendo una crónica de los hechos más relevantes de la historia. Obviamente, así no se puede profundizar en los personajes, aunque, a pesar de todo, sí lograron traspasarme el dolor y el sentimiento de pérdida de seres queridos, de lugares, de otros tiempos...
Me recordó mucho El jinete de bronce, aunque, por supuesto, le falta mucho para estar a la altura de la maravillosa obra de Paullina Simons.
December 31, 2017
Zoya, Danielle Steel
"Zoya Konstantinovna Ossupov" is a Russian countess, a young cousin to "Czar Nicholas II". Escaping the Russian Revolution with her grandmother and a loyal retainer, she arrives in Paris, penniless, where she must carve a new life for herself and her loved ones.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و یکم ماه اکتبر سال 1998 میلادی
عنوان: زویا؛ نویسنده: دانیل استیل؛ مترجم: استل فقیه، شیوا رویگردان؛ تهران، میلاد، 1371؛ در 478 ص؛ شابک: ایکس - 964626123؛ چاپ پنجم 1374؛ چاپ ششم 1376؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - قرن 20 م
نقل از آغاز داستان: زویا بار دیگر چشمهایش را بست کالسکه چون باد بر زمین یخ زده میلغزید ریزش آهسته برف بر گونه هایش بوسه های ریز و مرطوب بر جای میگذاشت و مژگانش را مبدل به تور میکرد. به صدای زنگوله های اسبها که در گوشش به مانند موسیقی بود گوش میداد. همه اینها صداهایی بودند که از کودکی به آنها علاقه داشت. در هفده سالگی؛ احساس بزرگی میکرد، در واقع تقریبا یک زن شده بود با این همه هنوز احساس میکرد دختر بچه ای بیش نیست. فئودور اسبهای سیاه زیبا را با تازیانه اش در میان برف هدایت میکرد... هر چه تندتر. و آنگاه که چشمهایش را گشود، توانست دهکده خارج تزارسکو سلو را ببیند. با خود لبخندی زد و با چشمهای نیمه باز، سعی کرد دو کاخ مشابه پشت دهکده را ببیند. یکی ازدستکشهایش را که آستر پوستی داشت کنار زد، تا ببیند چه زمانی گذشته است. به مادر خود قول داده بود هنگام صرف شام خانه باشد... و اگر مدت زیادی صحبت نکنند، به موقع خانه خواهد رسید ... اما چطور ممکن بود زیاد صحبت نکنند؟ ماری عزیزترین دوستش بود تقریبا مثل یک خواهر. فئودور سالخورده به او نگاهی کرد و لبخندی زد. زویا از هیجان خنده اش گرفت. روز عالی ای را پشت سر گذاشته بود. همیشه از کلاس باله ی خود لذت میبرد و حتی حالا هم کفشهای باله اش روی صندلی کنار او قرار داشت. رقصیدن برایش لذت خاصی داشت، از کودکی تنها آرزویش رقصیدن بود، و گاهی محرمانه به ماری آرزویش را به نجوا میگفت. آرزو داشت بیش از هر چیز فرار کند و به «ماری اینسکی» برود در آنجا زندگی کند و شب و روز با باقی رقصندگان آموزش ببیند. این فکر باعث شد لبخندی بزند. رویایی بود که حتی نمیتوانست آن را بازگو کند؛ آدمهای دنیای او در این هنر حرفه ای نمیشدند. از پنج سالگی
میدانست که استعدادش را دارد و دست کم درسهایش پیش مادام ناستوفا این دلخوشی را میداد که چیزی میآموزد که دوست دارد. ساعاتی که پیش مادام بود سخت کار میکرد، و همیشه تصور میکرد یک روز فوکین، استاد معروف رقص او را پیدا خواهد کرد. افکارش از باله به دوست دوران کودکی اش برگشت. کالسکه دهکده را پشت سر میگذاشت و به طرف دختر دایی اش ماری می رفت. پدر زویا، کنستانتین و تزار پسر عمو بودند، و مثل ماری، مادر زویا هم آلمانی بود. وجوه اشتراکشان بسیار بود، میلهایشان، رازهاشان، رویاهاشان و دنیاهاشان جملگی به هم میمانست. در کودکی لذتها و وحشتهای مشترکی را با هم تجربه کرده بودند و حال میبایست ماری را میدید با آنکه به مادرش قول داده بود این کار را نکند. واقعاً احمقانه بود، چرا ماری را نبیند؟ به ملاقات باقی مریضها که نمیرفت، و ماری هم حالش کاملاً خوب بود. تنها روز پیش برای زویا نامه ای فرستاده بود و در آن نوشته بود که بی اندازه ملول است چون اطرافیانش هم مریض اند. و بیماری خطرناک نبود، فقط سرخجه بود. ؛ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
"Zoya Konstantinovna Ossupov" is a Russian countess, a young cousin to "Czar Nicholas II". Escaping the Russian Revolution with her grandmother and a loyal retainer, she arrives in Paris, penniless, where she must carve a new life for herself and her loved ones.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و یکم ماه اکتبر سال 1998 میلادی
عنوان: زویا؛ نویسنده: دانیل استیل؛ مترجم: استل فقیه، شیوا رویگردان؛ تهران، میلاد، 1371؛ در 478 ص؛ شابک: ایکس - 964626123؛ چاپ پنجم 1374؛ چاپ ششم 1376؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - قرن 20 م
نقل از آغاز داستان: زویا بار دیگر چشمهایش را بست کالسکه چون باد بر زمین یخ زده میلغزید ریزش آهسته برف بر گونه هایش بوسه های ریز و مرطوب بر جای میگذاشت و مژگانش را مبدل به تور میکرد. به صدای زنگوله های اسبها که در گوشش به مانند موسیقی بود گوش میداد. همه اینها صداهایی بودند که از کودکی به آنها علاقه داشت. در هفده سالگی؛ احساس بزرگی میکرد، در واقع تقریبا یک زن شده بود با این همه هنوز احساس میکرد دختر بچه ای بیش نیست. فئودور اسبهای سیاه زیبا را با تازیانه اش در میان برف هدایت میکرد... هر چه تندتر. و آنگاه که چشمهایش را گشود، توانست دهکده خارج تزارسکو سلو را ببیند. با خود لبخندی زد و با چشمهای نیمه باز، سعی کرد دو کاخ مشابه پشت دهکده را ببیند. یکی ازدستکشهایش را که آستر پوستی داشت کنار زد، تا ببیند چه زمانی گذشته است. به مادر خود قول داده بود هنگام صرف شام خانه باشد... و اگر مدت زیادی صحبت نکنند، به موقع خانه خواهد رسید ... اما چطور ممکن بود زیاد صحبت نکنند؟ ماری عزیزترین دوستش بود تقریبا مثل یک خواهر. فئودور سالخورده به او نگاهی کرد و لبخندی زد. زویا از هیجان خنده اش گرفت. روز عالی ای را پشت سر گذاشته بود. همیشه از کلاس باله ی خود لذت میبرد و حتی حالا هم کفشهای باله اش روی صندلی کنار او قرار داشت. رقصیدن برایش لذت خاصی داشت، از کودکی تنها آرزویش رقصیدن بود، و گاهی محرمانه به ماری آرزویش را به نجوا میگفت. آرزو داشت بیش از هر چیز فرار کند و به «ماری اینسکی» برود در آنجا زندگی کند و شب و روز با باقی رقصندگان آموزش ببیند. این فکر باعث شد لبخندی بزند. رویایی بود که حتی نمیتوانست آن را بازگو کند؛ آدمهای دنیای او در این هنر حرفه ای نمیشدند. از پنج سالگی
میدانست که استعدادش را دارد و دست کم درسهایش پیش مادام ناستوفا این دلخوشی را میداد که چیزی میآموزد که دوست دارد. ساعاتی که پیش مادام بود سخت کار میکرد، و همیشه تصور میکرد یک روز فوکین، استاد معروف رقص او را پیدا خواهد کرد. افکارش از باله به دوست دوران کودکی اش برگشت. کالسکه دهکده را پشت سر میگذاشت و به طرف دختر دایی اش ماری می رفت. پدر زویا، کنستانتین و تزار پسر عمو بودند، و مثل ماری، مادر زویا هم آلمانی بود. وجوه اشتراکشان بسیار بود، میلهایشان، رازهاشان، رویاهاشان و دنیاهاشان جملگی به هم میمانست. در کودکی لذتها و وحشتهای مشترکی را با هم تجربه کرده بودند و حال میبایست ماری را میدید با آنکه به مادرش قول داده بود این کار را نکند. واقعاً احمقانه بود، چرا ماری را نبیند؟ به ملاقات باقی مریضها که نمیرفت، و ماری هم حالش کاملاً خوب بود. تنها روز پیش برای زویا نامه ای فرستاده بود و در آن نوشته بود که بی اندازه ملول است چون اطرافیانش هم مریض اند. و بیماری خطرناک نبود، فقط سرخجه بود. ؛ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
March 29, 2012
This is pretty much the only Danielle Steel novel that I ever liked. I would get her books as gifts, or I would pick one up thinking I would like it and just never did--they were all too similar, too lacking in substance--the cotton candy of books for me. Except Zoya. This one, I actually thoroughly enjoyed (it was a gift and at first I though, oh no...) Maybe it's because of the whole Russian history aspect...or maybe Ms. Steel was differently inspired for this book. At any rate, if you don't usually like Danielle Steel, this one might be different for you. It was for me.
February 14, 2016
Cuando decidí leer esta novela, lo hice pensando que sería una historia ligera, sin grandes pretensiones, y nada más lejos de la verdad. A mi modo de ver o entender es una novela triste, dura como la vida de la protagonista, y que se aleja totalmente de lo que yo considero es una novela romántica. De todas maneras, es una gran historia repleta de amor y sufrimiento...
August 7, 2012
Reading this book is like watching the trailer for an incredible movie -- and then realizing that you just watched the movie and there was nothing more to come!
Every time Zoya is in some new and interesting situation, you think, ah, now it will get really exciting and romantic. Only it never does! She's a pampered princess in Russia for like, five pages. Then she's poor in Paris. Then she's rich again. Then she's poor again. And all the time it was like, when will the action really start?
Danielle Steel writes like she's writing Cliff notes for a novel someone else wrote.
Every time Zoya is in some new and interesting situation, you think, ah, now it will get really exciting and romantic. Only it never does! She's a pampered princess in Russia for like, five pages. Then she's poor in Paris. Then she's rich again. Then she's poor again. And all the time it was like, when will the action really start?
Danielle Steel writes like she's writing Cliff notes for a novel someone else wrote.
December 26, 2022
В гимназията и университета с удоволствие четях някои заглавия на Даниел Стийл, посветени на исторически събития. Още тогава беше ясно, че историческият фон е шарена добавка към романтиката, но в някои случаи наистина и се беше получило добре.
Мотивът “принцеса Анастасия” е абсолютното любимо клише в романтичните заглавия. Царско потекло, зли болшевики, чудотворно спасение и любов с принца след емиграция в САЩ. Какво да не му хареса човек. С подобни маркери се изчерпва и целият сюжет тук. Всичко е абсолютно предвидимо. Но Стийл не прекалява чак много със сантименталностите, макар да пише в свръхсантиментален жанр, и носи искрена надежда. Това е разликата на по-старите авторки на “дамска проза” в сравнение с вятърничавите им сегашни посестрими. Споменът от войните е все още нещо реално, към което се подхожда с доза реализъм и разбиране, а не като към занаятчийски инструмент да шашнеш читателките с екзотична драма след драма.
2,5⭐️
Мотивът “принцеса Анастасия” е абсолютното любимо клише в романтичните заглавия. Царско потекло, зли болшевики, чудотворно спасение и любов с принца след емиграция в САЩ. Какво да не му хареса човек. С подобни маркери се изчерпва и целият сюжет тук. Всичко е абсолютно предвидимо. Но Стийл не прекалява чак много със сантименталностите, макар да пише в свръхсантиментален жанр, и носи искрена надежда. Това е разликата на по-старите авторки на “дамска проза” в сравнение с вятърничавите им сегашни посестрими. Споменът от войните е все още нещо реално, към което се подхожда с доза реализъм и разбиране, а не като към занаятчийски инструмент да шашнеш читателките с екзотична драма след драма.
2,5⭐️
Read
June 10, 2021This was good, but not stay up all night reading it to find out what's going to happen next - you just know that after something good happens, something crappy happens to upset Zoya's apple cart. I did like the Russian ties to the Romanov family, that was a good touch.
The book starts around the time of the Revolution, takes Zoya and her grandmother to Paris where they struggle with the rest of the Russians who fled the war, and eventually to New York and a new world with lots of losses and ups and downs amidst the good times. I think it ended with a much older heroine in the 1970s.
Glad I read it, enjoyed the name dropping throughout, but after finishing several days ago it's not sticking with me.
The book starts around the time of the Revolution, takes Zoya and her grandmother to Paris where they struggle with the rest of the Russians who fled the war, and eventually to New York and a new world with lots of losses and ups and downs amidst the good times. I think it ended with a much older heroine in the 1970s.
Glad I read it, enjoyed the name dropping throughout, but after finishing several days ago it's not sticking with me.
May 8, 2013
Danielle Steel once again proved that she is a great author. On the contrary to popular belief, she does not write these 'sweet' romances. Her heroines have to overcome so many obstacles to reach their happy ending that a reader only wonders 'Should a life be so cruel and hard?' and 'Is it even worth it?'. I don't know but I find all of her novels so realistic and believable...
In this case, our main character a young countess Zoya lives a pleasant life with her family in St. Petersburg. However, when she is 17 a revolution breaks out and she is forced to leave. She ends up in Paris but as a countess she doesn't know hard work. We see her struggling … but step by step she finds a new life there. And finally, when you think everything is ok… BAM… you realize that you're not even in the half of the book! And that's what I love about this book the most. You never know what's going to happen next and … Well, it kept me on the edge of my seat.
I admired Zoya for what she did and also her strength. She went through so much and still she kept going. I cannot even imagine how she was able to do that (and yes, I realize she is a fictional character but I believe she represents many people affected by war).
And I also enjoyed this book because of its setting. I've always been interested in that era – the Romanovs, and the Russian revolution so when I heard about this book I just knew I had to read it!
In this case, our main character a young countess Zoya lives a pleasant life with her family in St. Petersburg. However, when she is 17 a revolution breaks out and she is forced to leave. She ends up in Paris but as a countess she doesn't know hard work. We see her struggling … but step by step she finds a new life there. And finally, when you think everything is ok… BAM… you realize that you're not even in the half of the book! And that's what I love about this book the most. You never know what's going to happen next and … Well, it kept me on the edge of my seat.
I admired Zoya for what she did and also her strength. She went through so much and still she kept going. I cannot even imagine how she was able to do that (and yes, I realize she is a fictional character but I believe she represents many people affected by war).
And I also enjoyed this book because of its setting. I've always been interested in that era – the Romanovs, and the Russian revolution so when I heard about this book I just knew I had to read it!
June 16, 2007
I really liked this book when I was 10, mainly because I was obsessed with the Russian Revolution and cherished the possibility that I might be Anastasia Romanov. I've read it since then and it is the usual Danielle Steel schlock with tons of ellipses to fill space, lots of cliches, and banal unevocative descriptions. But, there's no such thing as a cliche when you're 10! It's a good read for people who are younger, not widely read, or big fans of Danielle Steel, as I used to be.
August 31, 2010
I read this one in High School. I really liked it because it was the only thing I could do while in detention hall. (that could be its own story). It was the biggest book my mom had, on her dresser. I stole it to keep me occupied. It worked. I want one of those eggs.
July 2, 2017
Lovely read! good storytelling,depth and also a few tense moments between certain characters..one can feel the love of family..well written (paperback!)
July 19, 2020
Loved this book in high school. My friends and I passed it around. We all thought czars and their families were fascinating. We all loved this story and thought Zoya must have been the most beautiful name in the world. One of these days I would love to read it again. Maybe I can find a copy to own. ❤️
August 15, 2023
I couldn't put this book down! Danielle Steel at her very best. A classic.
March 30, 2019
I was given this book as a gift from my grandma a little over two years ago. Now, being the lover of all romance books labeled as steamy , this one was definitely not at the top of my too reads. Well, here i was yesterday, guiltily staring at the beautiful 1988 cover of this giant hardcover book and finally said, FINE. Lets do this.
Oh. boy. This frickin' book.
I wish i could genuinely find the words to properly convey the vast array of emotions that went down through this harrowing experience i went through. I shall use interpretive gifs and the simplest terms of what i have felt. Buckle up bitches. Here is my review of Zoya.
At first i was feeling pretty confident. I'm two chapters deep and pretty well immersed in the Russian royalties world, as well as falling in love with all the characters we get introduced to.
BUT UH OH BABY apparently in Danielle Steel books its a trap.
Everything. EVERY. DAMN. THING.
It was like Danielle Steel had a personnel vendetta against Zoya and proceeded to strait up John Wick each of the characters she diligently added to the story to get you to care about. Strait up. She feels like the George R.R. Martin of romance.
Her hit list includes:
SERIOUSLY. I don't know if it was just how the relationships were built here, or that i'm just a big blubbering mess, but good god this hole book had me going from
to
and finally to this.
Seriously. This book. It did me in. I'll prove that point; I strictly keep a sleep schedule where i am literally in bed by 8 and asleep by 8:30. It is now 10:15 here on the west coast and not only am i not in bed, but i had to get out of bed in order to write my review for this book.
But why you may ask? Was it really that good?
Honestly, it was pretty dang good. Was it something different than anything I've read before? Yeah.
Have I been in a book slump and apparently needed something that was going to take an emotional wrecking ball to my temporal lobe and blow out my tear ducts? Heh, apparently. So, in total, yeah this book was pretty dang good. It was entertaining, had a bit of romance, had a rich (if slightly loose) basis in actual historical events, and had a heroine whose story was so freaking tragically dramatic that i, among all others who see a train wreck happening and cant look away, genuinely could not look away.
I found myself praying throughout the book that it would end on happily ever after, and in a way it did. Was it a classical romance where the man of her dreams and her ride off into the sunset to their castle of no-mo-troubles land? No. In fact a lot of the peace you get at the ending is that such a strong women endured such horrors and still came out the other side.
I could only hope that in Miss Steel's world Zoya someday is able to ride of into her own sunset. God knows that girl deserved it.
(okay side track note here) Being someone of the non-fiery red/copper/flameish color hair variety, i find the excessive descriptions of Zoya's hair color to be, well, excessive. You got good locks babe, cool. Or is this chick the walking equivalent of cousin IT, cause all peoples reactions to her, have to do with her hair. Move on.
5 stars. It made me cry. So, yeah, it was definitely a soulful investment.
Oh. boy. This frickin' book.
I wish i could genuinely find the words to properly convey the vast array of emotions that went down through this harrowing experience i went through. I shall use interpretive gifs and the simplest terms of what i have felt. Buckle up bitches. Here is my review of Zoya.
At first i was feeling pretty confident. I'm two chapters deep and pretty well immersed in the Russian royalties world, as well as falling in love with all the characters we get introduced to.
BUT UH OH BABY apparently in Danielle Steel books its a trap.
Everything. EVERY. DAMN. THING.
It was like Danielle Steel had a personnel vendetta against Zoya and proceeded to strait up John Wick each of the characters she diligently added to the story to get you to care about. Strait up. She feels like the George R.R. Martin of romance.
Her hit list includes:
SERIOUSLY. I don't know if it was just how the relationships were built here, or that i'm just a big blubbering mess, but good god this hole book had me going from
toand finally to this.
Seriously. This book. It did me in. I'll prove that point; I strictly keep a sleep schedule where i am literally in bed by 8 and asleep by 8:30. It is now 10:15 here on the west coast and not only am i not in bed, but i had to get out of bed in order to write my review for this book.
But why you may ask? Was it really that good?
Honestly, it was pretty dang good. Was it something different than anything I've read before? Yeah.
Have I been in a book slump and apparently needed something that was going to take an emotional wrecking ball to my temporal lobe and blow out my tear ducts? Heh, apparently. So, in total, yeah this book was pretty dang good. It was entertaining, had a bit of romance, had a rich (if slightly loose) basis in actual historical events, and had a heroine whose story was so freaking tragically dramatic that i, among all others who see a train wreck happening and cant look away, genuinely could not look away.
I found myself praying throughout the book that it would end on happily ever after, and in a way it did. Was it a classical romance where the man of her dreams and her ride off into the sunset to their castle of no-mo-troubles land? No. In fact a lot of the peace you get at the ending is that such a strong women endured such horrors and still came out the other side.
I could only hope that in Miss Steel's world Zoya someday is able to ride of into her own sunset. God knows that girl deserved it.
(okay side track note here) Being someone of the non-fiery red/copper/flameish color hair variety, i find the excessive descriptions of Zoya's hair color to be, well, excessive. You got good locks babe, cool. Or is this chick the walking equivalent of cousin IT, cause all peoples reactions to her, have to do with her hair. Move on.
5 stars. It made me cry. So, yeah, it was definitely a soulful investment.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 12, 2017
This is not the first time I have read this. I first read this when I was 9 or 10. Probably too young but who cares. Being 38 now, I've read it probably 20 times since then. I am in no way a Danielle Steele fan. normally I read fantasy. But I always reread this. I love "old war love stories", The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simmons is my all time favorite book. Such simple acts of love are so romantic. This is one of the few books I literally fly through. Pages turn fast then faster still. I guess it's a secret indulgence. The ONLY thing wrong is I'm really not a fan of dogs dying in books but that's life. I will reread this a few dozen more times in my life.
August 31, 2020
No te la podes perder!!! Zoya, una joven aristócrata de San Petersburgo, tras la revolución rusa y la primera guerra mundial viaja a París....donde los acontecimientos se suceden con un vértigo atronador...una mujer que nos dejará una marca para siempre.
October 4, 2019
Why did I do this to myself? Why did I convince myself I'd like this? HOW did I convince myself I'd like this? Fellow reviewers who wrote things like "I usually don't like Danielle Steel books, but I liked this one a lot", I blame you, but only partially.
I should have been smart enough to know what I was getting into with THIS 'gem' of a sentence on page one: 'At seventeen, she felt grown up, was in fact almost a woman, yet she still felt like a little girl...' What on earth even IS THAT? You literally just said she felt "grown up" and "like a little girl" in the same sentence. Which IS it? Sadly, this is from the BEGINNING portion of the book, where SOME sentences are almost -- though not quite -- coherent. It gets worse. So, so much worse.
So, the alleged plot of this clunker is that a young countess named Zoya, a cousin and best friend of the Romanovs, flees during the revolution and becomes a ballerina in Paris to support herself. Okay, sounds promising. Minus the whole actually working as a ballerina thing, it sounds a little -- a very little, but enough to pique my interest even without the Romanov subplot -- like one of my favorite books, A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson. This is what I wanted to read this thing for. It sounds right up my alley. I'm not -- or at least was not -- bias against Danielle Steel, even though I usually don't go for her brand of 'gushy Romance' novel.
I should have been, though. Because she does nothing with this premise. At first, despite the bad writing, it was promising, as the interaction between Zoya and Marie wasn't the worst thing, and it was kind of nice to see a Romanov sister besides Anastasia, especially one as overlooked as Maria, in the spotlight. I mean, the way Steel wrote it had problems -- such as using Marie's troubles as a springboard for Zoya's emotions rather than establishing them separately in any way. She even sums up Zoya's personality as "Being like Marie" aside from quirks like 'feistiness' so that she DOESN'T have to worry about building her personality up beyond that. In fact, Zoya really acts nothing like Maria Romanov probably would in literally ANY situation she fell into, but whatever. I also give Steel some kudos for not writing Alexandra as a shrewish bitch (pardon my French, friends, but a LOT of writers are guilty of this sin), and actually making her very kind and likable while not veering too far from the mistakes we know she made historically. I, however, retract all kudos because she makes almost every other woman besides Zoya, the Romanov girls, Zoya's grandmama, Alexandra, and maybe that one female boss Zoya has later in the story, a completely hate-worthy shrew! I'm not kidding, from Zoya's mom to Zoya's own daughter Sasha, 90% of the females in this book are horrible human beings with literally no reason why they should be.
After Zoya visits the Romanovs (and gets given a puppy, because puppies) while the girls besides Maria have measles, Steel makes a weak attempt to build up the characters of Zoya's brother and father as these really admirable, likable people. For about two chapters. Then kills them off. I don't know how I feel about this, because on the one hand, it's horribly done, on the other I seriously didn't think she'd have the guts to kill them off and leave Zoya-sue without their protection. So I kind of admired Steel initially for being this brutal and hoped it meant she would have the strength to put her characters in real peril and make me as a reader care about them. I didn't want Game of Thrones levels of murder going on, but I was hoping for some deathly drama to take away from the bad writing, to at least give the story a point. And in a small way I did get that. On the other hand, just no. The build up was weak and the deaths were way too fast -- like blink and you'll miss them fast. Worse, I really don't think she should have killed off Zoya's mother in a fire right after killing off her brother and father. It would have been more interesting if we were forced to deal with her shrewishness (it's the author's own fault for making her that horrible) as she and Zoya and the grandmother traveled to Paris. Instead she dies and we get 'loving but tough granny' nursing Zoya who has time-release plot convenient measles.
I kind of liked Zoya's goodbye to Marie when they go to the Alexander Palace for the last time and Marie has now got the measles herself and Zoya has to lie to her about leaving the country, but it wasn't written in an emotional way at all. Just being told "Zoya was sad" or "Zoya was crying" wasn't enough for me. This scene has no tone, no atmosphere.
So from there, Zoya is poor and recovering from measles while in Paris. And you know what? This would have been kind of interesting from Zoya's perspective. If the author had written it as a blur in her mind, or as muddled scenes our heroine only half understands. But, nope. Steel instead just changes POVs. Okay, that's her choice, but how she does is just BAD. She sometimes doesn't even end a paragraph before changing whose head we're in. I got the feeling she thought she was writing in an omnipresent tone, except that's NOT how you write omnipresent! What Steel does is literally head-jumping and exposition dumping. This is how a fifth grader or a fourteen year old girl with her first laptop (I should know, I used to be that girl, many years ago) writes. This is not how a professional book should read. And I could forgive Steel if she just used this during Zoya's illness. It's a cheap cop-out, but maybe she couldn't find another way around it. Nope. She does this REPEATEDLY throughout the novel. We jump from head to head like we're on a freaking pogo stick.
So, ballet time?
Ha.
Yeah, Zoya does ballet for her job to support herself and granny, but we're told this, not shown it. And then the company she works for travels away and she doesn't want to leave her grandmother so goes to another company but she doesn't like them and we don't really see them either. We get more scenes of grandmamma whining about how 'improper' it is for Zoya to be a dancer than we do of Zoya dancing.
Well, grandmamma and the only servant to escape with them die, and Zoya gets rescued by 'dashing hero' (coughcough loser! coughcough) number one. Don't get too attached, he's only one of three 'dashing' guys who adores our heroine in this book. He's so much older than Zoya, they have nothing in common, BUT she LUVS him so, so much. He does nothing endearing aside from one scene where he gives them a samovar. Otherwise he's a creeper. But of course he's the hero and after abandoning her 'for her own good' he 'saves' Zoya from her horrible life and yay they're rich and happy as the day is long. Well whoopee! Never mind that the Romanovs died. Or that Pierre Gilliard was a character for a while (a couple chapters, as he delivers the news to Zoya) and then is never seen again..
So story over? Happy ending?
Not in this freaking book!
Zoya faces a new challenge. The servants loved her husband's first wife, and don't want her, so we are in the plot of Rebecca apparently. For a whole page or so. Because it's Olga (the tsar's sister) to the rescue (for about a page) to reveal Zoya's true identity and make the New York snobbies love her!
Except that explains nothing as to why the servants would let up on her. But hey, we're getting Olga as a character? Nope, she's gone. Darn.
Well two kiddoes later, Zoya's husband loses all his money and dies of a heart attack. Blah blah blah fire, blah blah blah poor, blah blah blah one kid is an angel and one kid is a brat (guess which one, the boy or the girl? It's obvious, isn't it?) blah blah blah dance hall, blah blah blah dog dies, blah blah blah, new Devil Wears Prada type job, followed by new boyfriend turned new husband.
Okay, book, you're OVER, wave buh-bye.
Nope.
Because new husband boyfriend (whose mother is an unlikable shrew, go figure) dies in world war two. And Zoya's all alone...again... And her daughter's mean...again...
Can I just take a break here and whine about what a horrible character Zoya's daughter is? I mean, not ONE redeeming quality in this girl. The only explanation we get is that she was 'a little spoiled' as a kid. Okay, but so was Zoya and even though she IS kind of a horrible person, the book isn't trying to portray her as such so you're kind of not explaining your point AT ALL. Also, apparently being 'a little spoiled' means you cannot live happily ever after. You will end up divorced (like Zoya's first daughter-in-law, shrew number who's even counting at this point?) or dead in a car crash like Zoya's daughter.
Zoya gets another boyfriend, he's also a loser. Because Zoya only goes for losers. The one guy who kind of wasn't, waaay back in Paris, was described as "too ugly" (sensitive, Steel, real sensitive, just gotta hit us with how ugly people can't find love because they're sooo ugly, great moral). He's married but it's okay because he and his wife aren't close. There's nothing morally wrong with his cheating on her for sure! Then his wife finally dies (I'm not kidding the book itself says "she finally died"...just wow...) and he and Zoya never marry because...of no logical reason...Zoya just says no thanks.
Zoya raises grandchild, blah blah blah. They maybe go to Russia, blah blah blah. The end. Finally.
So as you can see I really disliked this book. I can't say the author did no research, as SOME of the stuff about the Romanovs was vaguely correct, but I can say she put this research to no useful purpose for her story. The love stories all suck, the writing is bad, and while I can't speak for Danielle Steel's other, ergo more recent, books, this one does not make me want to read them. In fact I never want to read anything by her again after this. Even if a topic of her books piques my interest, I'll probably pass. I'm done. This was just unbearably bad. I don't know if the target audience like this (bored housewives before Fifty Shades of Gray was a thing? or before their daughters' Twilight books were left on the kitchen counters? Or they weren't smart enough to read V.C. Andrews in the 80s so they settled for this instead?) but I sure don't. I would actually go so far as to say it's the worst Romanov book I've ever seen, even worse than the one where Alexei has a cell phone. At least that book was short -- this thing was 500 pages!
Glad this is over. May my next read be better -- though really I can't see how it could be worse.
I should have been smart enough to know what I was getting into with THIS 'gem' of a sentence on page one: 'At seventeen, she felt grown up, was in fact almost a woman, yet she still felt like a little girl...' What on earth even IS THAT? You literally just said she felt "grown up" and "like a little girl" in the same sentence. Which IS it? Sadly, this is from the BEGINNING portion of the book, where SOME sentences are almost -- though not quite -- coherent. It gets worse. So, so much worse.
So, the alleged plot of this clunker is that a young countess named Zoya, a cousin and best friend of the Romanovs, flees during the revolution and becomes a ballerina in Paris to support herself. Okay, sounds promising. Minus the whole actually working as a ballerina thing, it sounds a little -- a very little, but enough to pique my interest even without the Romanov subplot -- like one of my favorite books, A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson. This is what I wanted to read this thing for. It sounds right up my alley. I'm not -- or at least was not -- bias against Danielle Steel, even though I usually don't go for her brand of 'gushy Romance' novel.
I should have been, though. Because she does nothing with this premise. At first, despite the bad writing, it was promising, as the interaction between Zoya and Marie wasn't the worst thing, and it was kind of nice to see a Romanov sister besides Anastasia, especially one as overlooked as Maria, in the spotlight. I mean, the way Steel wrote it had problems -- such as using Marie's troubles as a springboard for Zoya's emotions rather than establishing them separately in any way. She even sums up Zoya's personality as "Being like Marie" aside from quirks like 'feistiness' so that she DOESN'T have to worry about building her personality up beyond that. In fact, Zoya really acts nothing like Maria Romanov probably would in literally ANY situation she fell into, but whatever. I also give Steel some kudos for not writing Alexandra as a shrewish bitch (pardon my French, friends, but a LOT of writers are guilty of this sin), and actually making her very kind and likable while not veering too far from the mistakes we know she made historically. I, however, retract all kudos because she makes almost every other woman besides Zoya, the Romanov girls, Zoya's grandmama, Alexandra, and maybe that one female boss Zoya has later in the story, a completely hate-worthy shrew! I'm not kidding, from Zoya's mom to Zoya's own daughter Sasha, 90% of the females in this book are horrible human beings with literally no reason why they should be.
After Zoya visits the Romanovs (and gets given a puppy, because puppies) while the girls besides Maria have measles, Steel makes a weak attempt to build up the characters of Zoya's brother and father as these really admirable, likable people. For about two chapters. Then kills them off. I don't know how I feel about this, because on the one hand, it's horribly done, on the other I seriously didn't think she'd have the guts to kill them off and leave Zoya-sue without their protection. So I kind of admired Steel initially for being this brutal and hoped it meant she would have the strength to put her characters in real peril and make me as a reader care about them. I didn't want Game of Thrones levels of murder going on, but I was hoping for some deathly drama to take away from the bad writing, to at least give the story a point. And in a small way I did get that. On the other hand, just no. The build up was weak and the deaths were way too fast -- like blink and you'll miss them fast. Worse, I really don't think she should have killed off Zoya's mother in a fire right after killing off her brother and father. It would have been more interesting if we were forced to deal with her shrewishness (it's the author's own fault for making her that horrible) as she and Zoya and the grandmother traveled to Paris. Instead she dies and we get 'loving but tough granny' nursing Zoya who has time-release plot convenient measles.
I kind of liked Zoya's goodbye to Marie when they go to the Alexander Palace for the last time and Marie has now got the measles herself and Zoya has to lie to her about leaving the country, but it wasn't written in an emotional way at all. Just being told "Zoya was sad" or "Zoya was crying" wasn't enough for me. This scene has no tone, no atmosphere.
So from there, Zoya is poor and recovering from measles while in Paris. And you know what? This would have been kind of interesting from Zoya's perspective. If the author had written it as a blur in her mind, or as muddled scenes our heroine only half understands. But, nope. Steel instead just changes POVs. Okay, that's her choice, but how she does is just BAD. She sometimes doesn't even end a paragraph before changing whose head we're in. I got the feeling she thought she was writing in an omnipresent tone, except that's NOT how you write omnipresent! What Steel does is literally head-jumping and exposition dumping. This is how a fifth grader or a fourteen year old girl with her first laptop (I should know, I used to be that girl, many years ago) writes. This is not how a professional book should read. And I could forgive Steel if she just used this during Zoya's illness. It's a cheap cop-out, but maybe she couldn't find another way around it. Nope. She does this REPEATEDLY throughout the novel. We jump from head to head like we're on a freaking pogo stick.
So, ballet time?
Ha.
Yeah, Zoya does ballet for her job to support herself and granny, but we're told this, not shown it. And then the company she works for travels away and she doesn't want to leave her grandmother so goes to another company but she doesn't like them and we don't really see them either. We get more scenes of grandmamma whining about how 'improper' it is for Zoya to be a dancer than we do of Zoya dancing.
Well, grandmamma and the only servant to escape with them die, and Zoya gets rescued by 'dashing hero' (coughcough loser! coughcough) number one. Don't get too attached, he's only one of three 'dashing' guys who adores our heroine in this book. He's so much older than Zoya, they have nothing in common, BUT she LUVS him so, so much. He does nothing endearing aside from one scene where he gives them a samovar. Otherwise he's a creeper. But of course he's the hero and after abandoning her 'for her own good' he 'saves' Zoya from her horrible life and yay they're rich and happy as the day is long. Well whoopee! Never mind that the Romanovs died. Or that Pierre Gilliard was a character for a while (a couple chapters, as he delivers the news to Zoya) and then is never seen again..
So story over? Happy ending?
Not in this freaking book!
Zoya faces a new challenge. The servants loved her husband's first wife, and don't want her, so we are in the plot of Rebecca apparently. For a whole page or so. Because it's Olga (the tsar's sister) to the rescue (for about a page) to reveal Zoya's true identity and make the New York snobbies love her!
Except that explains nothing as to why the servants would let up on her. But hey, we're getting Olga as a character? Nope, she's gone. Darn.
Well two kiddoes later, Zoya's husband loses all his money and dies of a heart attack. Blah blah blah fire, blah blah blah poor, blah blah blah one kid is an angel and one kid is a brat (guess which one, the boy or the girl? It's obvious, isn't it?) blah blah blah dance hall, blah blah blah dog dies, blah blah blah, new Devil Wears Prada type job, followed by new boyfriend turned new husband.
Okay, book, you're OVER, wave buh-bye.
Nope.
Because new husband boyfriend (whose mother is an unlikable shrew, go figure) dies in world war two. And Zoya's all alone...again... And her daughter's mean...again...
Can I just take a break here and whine about what a horrible character Zoya's daughter is? I mean, not ONE redeeming quality in this girl. The only explanation we get is that she was 'a little spoiled' as a kid. Okay, but so was Zoya and even though she IS kind of a horrible person, the book isn't trying to portray her as such so you're kind of not explaining your point AT ALL. Also, apparently being 'a little spoiled' means you cannot live happily ever after. You will end up divorced (like Zoya's first daughter-in-law, shrew number who's even counting at this point?) or dead in a car crash like Zoya's daughter.
Zoya gets another boyfriend, he's also a loser. Because Zoya only goes for losers. The one guy who kind of wasn't, waaay back in Paris, was described as "too ugly" (sensitive, Steel, real sensitive, just gotta hit us with how ugly people can't find love because they're sooo ugly, great moral). He's married but it's okay because he and his wife aren't close. There's nothing morally wrong with his cheating on her for sure! Then his wife finally dies (I'm not kidding the book itself says "she finally died"...just wow...) and he and Zoya never marry because...of no logical reason...Zoya just says no thanks.
Zoya raises grandchild, blah blah blah. They maybe go to Russia, blah blah blah. The end. Finally.
So as you can see I really disliked this book. I can't say the author did no research, as SOME of the stuff about the Romanovs was vaguely correct, but I can say she put this research to no useful purpose for her story. The love stories all suck, the writing is bad, and while I can't speak for Danielle Steel's other, ergo more recent, books, this one does not make me want to read them. In fact I never want to read anything by her again after this. Even if a topic of her books piques my interest, I'll probably pass. I'm done. This was just unbearably bad. I don't know if the target audience like this (bored housewives before Fifty Shades of Gray was a thing? or before their daughters' Twilight books were left on the kitchen counters? Or they weren't smart enough to read V.C. Andrews in the 80s so they settled for this instead?) but I sure don't. I would actually go so far as to say it's the worst Romanov book I've ever seen, even worse than the one where Alexei has a cell phone. At least that book was short -- this thing was 500 pages!
Glad this is over. May my next read be better -- though really I can't see how it could be worse.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2024
This came out when I was sixteen and I remember reading it when it was new and was all in. I am sure that I reread more than once (as I was wont to do) and found myself remembering it fondly over the years. I suspected, rightly, that I knew too much about Russian History and Orthodoxy now for it to be as amazing as remembered, but the nostalgia factor was high, and it was a lovely reread. 3.5 stars.
August 6, 2016
A l’aube de la révolution russe, Zoya, une jeune cousine du tsar se voit obligée de fuir son pays avec sa grand-mère. Toutes deux gagnent Paris, où elles doivent s’habituer à une existence en tout point différent du luxe qu’elles ont connu auparavant. Heureusement, la force de caractère de la jeune fille lui permettra de survivre et de se construire une vie agréable, entre la France et New York.
Zoya retrace le portrait d’une jeune fille incroyable, qui fera preuve d’une capacité d’adaptation inimaginable. N’ayant rien connu d’autre que le luxe de la haute société jusqu’à ses dix-sept ans, la révolution la force à découvrir un monde tout différent, dans lequel elle doit travailler pour assurer sa subsistance et celle de sa grand-mère. Traumatisée par le sort de sa famille en Russie, elle se relèvera pourtant à chaque échec, poursuivant son rêve de bonheur. Et, comme dans toute fiction romantique qui se respecte, elle rencontrera l’amour.
Je dois admettre que, à ma grande surprise, j’ai été transportée sur les pas de l’héroïne sans même m’en rendre compte et j’ai apprécié ce roman qui me laissait au départ sceptique. Il est vrai que les romances ne sont pas vraiment mon genre, mais j’ai décidé de tenter ma chance avec Zoya en raison du contexte de la révolution russe, qui m’intéresse beaucoup. C’est donc sans surprise que je dirai que la première partie a été ma préférée : on y découvre Zoya dans son enfance et son adolescence, on entrevoit la beauté des palais de la famille royale et les paysages d’hiver de ce pays, bientôt détruit par de sanglants combats.
La deuxième partie est située à Paris et offre un contraste marqué avec la première. Fini le luxe, Zoya et sa grand-mère ne sont plus rien. Dans la misère, toutefois, la jeune fille fait preuve d’un courage sans pareil et se rend très attachante de par son fort caractère. C’est là qu’elle rencontrera l’amour, une histoire touchante, mais bien trop romancée et rapide à mon goût.
Voilà donc l’héroïne partie pour New York, où elle fera à nouveau partie des personnes influentes. Cela signifie une fois de plus un changement, et le fait qu’elle doive s’adapter à un nouveau système, mais elle le fait naturellement, sans problème visible. Le bonheur est toutefois de courte durée en raison de la crise de 1929, auquel son mari ne survivra pas. Zoya, elle, s’en sortira, tout comme ses enfants, et quelques années plus tard, elle rencontrera à nouveau l’amour. Bien qu’ayant apprécié cette partie, j’ai trouvé que l’auteur basculait trop dans les clichés, et qu’on passait trop souvent d’un moment de pur bonheur à un instant de profond désespoir, où les évènements tragiques s’enchaînent à une vitesse incroyable.
Malgré ces extrêmes, l’histoire m’a plu, sans aucun doute grâce à Zoya elle-même. Si les autres personnages manquent de profondeur, elle est tout simplement admirable. Le contexte y est aussi pour beaucoup, car Zoya a non seulement traversé la révolution russe, mais aussi la première guerre mondiale, le krach économique de 29 et la seconde guerre mondiale. Oscillant entre la haute société et les couches plus pauvres, elle nous donne un aperçu de la vie à cette époque historique importante et nous emmène par la même occasion dans le monde de la mode.
Zoya plaira donc aux amateurs de belles histoires d’amour. Elle est sans conteste l’héroïne idéale pour un tel roman de par son caractère et le contexte dans lequel elle évolue. J’aurais toutefois aimé avoir davantage de détails historiques et un peu moins de clichés, mais ce fut néanmoins une lecture agréable.
Zoya retrace le portrait d’une jeune fille incroyable, qui fera preuve d’une capacité d’adaptation inimaginable. N’ayant rien connu d’autre que le luxe de la haute société jusqu’à ses dix-sept ans, la révolution la force à découvrir un monde tout différent, dans lequel elle doit travailler pour assurer sa subsistance et celle de sa grand-mère. Traumatisée par le sort de sa famille en Russie, elle se relèvera pourtant à chaque échec, poursuivant son rêve de bonheur. Et, comme dans toute fiction romantique qui se respecte, elle rencontrera l’amour.
Je dois admettre que, à ma grande surprise, j’ai été transportée sur les pas de l’héroïne sans même m’en rendre compte et j’ai apprécié ce roman qui me laissait au départ sceptique. Il est vrai que les romances ne sont pas vraiment mon genre, mais j’ai décidé de tenter ma chance avec Zoya en raison du contexte de la révolution russe, qui m’intéresse beaucoup. C’est donc sans surprise que je dirai que la première partie a été ma préférée : on y découvre Zoya dans son enfance et son adolescence, on entrevoit la beauté des palais de la famille royale et les paysages d’hiver de ce pays, bientôt détruit par de sanglants combats.
La deuxième partie est située à Paris et offre un contraste marqué avec la première. Fini le luxe, Zoya et sa grand-mère ne sont plus rien. Dans la misère, toutefois, la jeune fille fait preuve d’un courage sans pareil et se rend très attachante de par son fort caractère. C’est là qu’elle rencontrera l’amour, une histoire touchante, mais bien trop romancée et rapide à mon goût.
Voilà donc l’héroïne partie pour New York, où elle fera à nouveau partie des personnes influentes. Cela signifie une fois de plus un changement, et le fait qu’elle doive s’adapter à un nouveau système, mais elle le fait naturellement, sans problème visible. Le bonheur est toutefois de courte durée en raison de la crise de 1929, auquel son mari ne survivra pas. Zoya, elle, s’en sortira, tout comme ses enfants, et quelques années plus tard, elle rencontrera à nouveau l’amour. Bien qu’ayant apprécié cette partie, j’ai trouvé que l’auteur basculait trop dans les clichés, et qu’on passait trop souvent d’un moment de pur bonheur à un instant de profond désespoir, où les évènements tragiques s’enchaînent à une vitesse incroyable.
Malgré ces extrêmes, l’histoire m’a plu, sans aucun doute grâce à Zoya elle-même. Si les autres personnages manquent de profondeur, elle est tout simplement admirable. Le contexte y est aussi pour beaucoup, car Zoya a non seulement traversé la révolution russe, mais aussi la première guerre mondiale, le krach économique de 29 et la seconde guerre mondiale. Oscillant entre la haute société et les couches plus pauvres, elle nous donne un aperçu de la vie à cette époque historique importante et nous emmène par la même occasion dans le monde de la mode.
Zoya plaira donc aux amateurs de belles histoires d’amour. Elle est sans conteste l’héroïne idéale pour un tel roman de par son caractère et le contexte dans lequel elle évolue. J’aurais toutefois aimé avoir davantage de détails historiques et un peu moins de clichés, mais ce fut néanmoins une lecture agréable.
February 8, 2021
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tw: epidemic of measles, hemophilia, mentions of war, mentions of murder, death, mental illness portrayed in an unsavory light, questionable age gap in a couple, threats of child abuse, mentions of abortion, war, mentions of the holocaust, anti Semitism
This will be a pretty short review as I don’t have much to say about this book. I’m attempting to get through my massive book collection and so I’m rereading pre-goodreads books and writing reviews on them. I’m reading a bunch of Danielle Steel as well so I can give the ones I don’t care for to my mom. I got a lot going on.
This book was alright. It wasn’t anything special. I remember loving this book because it was a russian main character who was a dancer, things I still love reading about to this day. It’s also a typical riches to rags to riches story, if there is such a thing. Zoya was a beloved member of the royal family and when the revolution happened, she had to escape. This is the story of her life after that.
Overall, this is a good filler book if you are looking for something in between books. It’s a rather large book in terms of page number but the good thing with Danielle Steel, is that her books, no matter how big, reads fairly quick. This only took me a couple of days to read.
tw: epidemic of measles, hemophilia, mentions of war, mentions of murder, death, mental illness portrayed in an unsavory light, questionable age gap in a couple, threats of child abuse, mentions of abortion, war, mentions of the holocaust, anti Semitism
This will be a pretty short review as I don’t have much to say about this book. I’m attempting to get through my massive book collection and so I’m rereading pre-goodreads books and writing reviews on them. I’m reading a bunch of Danielle Steel as well so I can give the ones I don’t care for to my mom. I got a lot going on.
This book was alright. It wasn’t anything special. I remember loving this book because it was a russian main character who was a dancer, things I still love reading about to this day. It’s also a typical riches to rags to riches story, if there is such a thing. Zoya was a beloved member of the royal family and when the revolution happened, she had to escape. This is the story of her life after that.
Overall, this is a good filler book if you are looking for something in between books. It’s a rather large book in terms of page number but the good thing with Danielle Steel, is that her books, no matter how big, reads fairly quick. This only took me a couple of days to read.
August 10, 2012
This is one of the two books from Danielle Steel that I've read. And I can't even remember the title of the other one (Update: Hey, It's The Gift! Lol). But this one's something else.
I have always been curious about the Russian Revolution since having watched the animated movie 'Anastasia'. I've researched extensively about the Romanov family and watched a lot of documentaries about it. So when my Algebra Tutor mentioned that she used to read this book about the Czar and his fallen family (it wasn't really about them, though), my heart skipped a bit. I MUST read this book!
Well, it was hard to find a new copy of this at that time so I wasn't able to read it right away. But after chancing upon it at a pre-owned book store, I just HAZ TO HAZ EET! :)
The wait was well worth it. Steel almost made me believe this character is really the cousin of the Czar! The way she describes each member of the family is just seamless. I even researched her on the internet! Lol. I also sympathized with this heroine a lot throughout the story (well, she did have lots of ups and downs).
So yeah, I generally loved this novel, maybe trim down the cliches and banal scenes, it could've been one of my favorites. Well, it was for a while, but after re-reading it earlier this year, I'm not digging it as much. Huh..
I have always been curious about the Russian Revolution since having watched the animated movie 'Anastasia'. I've researched extensively about the Romanov family and watched a lot of documentaries about it. So when my Algebra Tutor mentioned that she used to read this book about the Czar and his fallen family (it wasn't really about them, though), my heart skipped a bit. I MUST read this book!
Well, it was hard to find a new copy of this at that time so I wasn't able to read it right away. But after chancing upon it at a pre-owned book store, I just HAZ TO HAZ EET! :)
The wait was well worth it. Steel almost made me believe this character is really the cousin of the Czar! The way she describes each member of the family is just seamless. I even researched her on the internet! Lol. I also sympathized with this heroine a lot throughout the story (well, she did have lots of ups and downs).
So yeah, I generally loved this novel, maybe trim down the cliches and banal scenes, it could've been one of my favorites. Well, it was for a while, but after re-reading it earlier this year, I'm not digging it as much. Huh..
August 25, 2009
Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, Zoya was a good "beach" read while vacationing in the Outer Banks of NC. In typical Danielle Steel fashion, leading character, Zoya, is a strong, determined, beautiful woman who must face and overcome many challenges and obstacles. The writing was somewhat "flat" and when characters died I didn't feel any emotion. The historical setting and connections to the Russian Tsar were the most interesting part of the book for me.
February 21, 2008
This is one of my favorites. I'm not a huge D.S. fan but this story is one that I love to read; over and over again. Fictional characters fit so seamlessly into actual historical events and she describes it all so beautifully. Almost makes you wish you had been there to see it and enjoy the ride of highs and lows along with the characters in the story.
February 27, 2016
I'm giving it three because I loved it when I was younger, but I'm almost positive I'll hate it now like I do with both the Titanic and Vietnam war novels she's written. I'm sure it's full of historical inaccuracies and I'd rather look back on this book as a read I loved as a teen and leave it in the past.
June 1, 2019
Good book to read right before visiting St Petersburg. Easy read that held my attention, but too many huge tragedies happening to one woman. Not believable and lacked real historical meat.
July 13, 2020
One of the beautiful stories I ever read.
June 14, 2020
One of my favorite of Ms.Steel works. Already reread it about 10th times 😊
December 30, 2012
Would it be weird to say that I enjoyed the first half of the book, more than the second? The story of Zoya and her Grandmothers escape from Russia and life in Paris was much more interesting to me than her subsequent life in New York.
I felt curiously disconnected from much of the story, like reading an outline, rather than reading a novel - which is a problem I've had reading other books of hers. Which is strange because one of my favourite books is one of hers (The Gift - if you don't cry your eyes out reading that book then you have no heart).
So much time was spent setting up her life with Clayton and within 20 pages of reaching New York, it was all over and she was meeting the next love of her life. Another problem I have with it is her daughter - Sasha, now Zoya at work is described as a woman you wouldn't want to cross - so why can't she take her own daughter in hand? Why does she walk all over her?
Weird.
I felt curiously disconnected from much of the story, like reading an outline, rather than reading a novel - which is a problem I've had reading other books of hers. Which is strange because one of my favourite books is one of hers (The Gift - if you don't cry your eyes out reading that book then you have no heart).
So much time was spent setting up her life with Clayton and within 20 pages of reaching New York, it was all over and she was meeting the next love of her life. Another problem I have with it is her daughter - Sasha, now Zoya at work is described as a woman you wouldn't want to cross - so why can't she take her own daughter in hand? Why does she walk all over her?
Weird.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2015
I used to read a lot of Danielle Steel when I was younger, but I stopped as I got older. Reading this book, I remember why I stopped. Tragedy after tragedy happens to the main character, almost to the point of "Damn, give this woman a BREAK already!" The writing style is amateurish and weak. Really, I only picked this one up because of the Russian Revolution aspect of it. While that part of it was interesting, the book dragged and dragged...mostly because you knew just ONE more tragedy was waiting around the corner. A little too melodramatic for me.
May 16, 2011
OMG. When I read this book. I did not return to the owner. I become bitchy about and boy did I just own it!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've read this book many tyms and I have never got bored with it. Zoya from the tym she escapes the Russian Revolution with her grandma, the hardships and pain she went through. wow. Its tells of the tale of richness, to glory , to poverty, war, deaths, beauty and survfival of a young Russian princess from the 1900s to the Cold War. She survived all the wars. IT IS LOVABLE.
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