Romanov by Nadine Brandes

So much for getting this posted on Wednesday. :P Really sorry, everyone. 

Romanov
by Nadine Brandes

Genre: YA historical fantasy

My Rating: ★★★★

Description:

Nastya was once known as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the Tsar of Russia. Now, her family is being forced into exile, and she has been entrusted with a single task - smuggle a powerful spell to the House of Special Purpose. It might be the only thing that can save her family.

But with the leader of the Bolshevik army hunting them, Nastya is soon faced with a choice - release the spell... or enlist the help of Zash, a confusing soldier who Nastya believes she can trust.
That is, until he's on one side of a firing squad... and she's on the other.

Overall Thoughts

I adored this book. I was about to hit the publish button and just leave the whole review at that, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the greatest idea. :P
But yes. I came to Romanov with high expectations, because after reading Fawkes, I knew that Romanov had a lot to live up to. While it wasn't quite as good as Fawkes (it's very hard to be as good as Fawkes), Romanov did not disappoint.

The Characters

First -- the characters. I loved Nastya, and I thought she made an excellent main character. Anastasia being the POV character for a book about the Romanovs may be cliche, but it certainly worked in this case. I really liked how much she cared about her family -- this was really admirable. I also appreciated her strength through a lot of difficult situations, but how she also felt human. She made mistakes and got angry and frustrated and found it hard to forgive her captors.
I also loved her relationships with her family members -- particularly Alexei. Their interactions felt really genuine. I wasn't sure how I felt about Alexei himself at first -- mostly because his personality is nothing like mine, so I had a hard time understanding how matter-of-fact he was about some things. But he's still a good character.
Zash was amazing. I really liked his character development, and I like how the author took time to develop his character arc and not rush to the conclusion.
The only major character that lacked a lot of development was the main villain, the Commandant. I wish he had been written with some more motivation and backstory, because sometimes he seemed to be evil for the sake of being evil. He does have a motive, but I wish more work had been done to deepen it, if that makes sense.

Plot/Pacing

The plot was solid -- not the strongest point of the book, in my opinion, but solid. It actually almost feels like two separate stories: you have the "before" story about the Romanovs living in the House of Special Purpose (which feels overall more historical) and then you have the "after" story, which occurs just after... well, you'll know when you get there. :P
I've read several Anastasia stories before this one, and so the "before" felt very familiar to me. I feel that if it had gone on much longer, I would have started to get bored. I feel that most readers probably won't have the same problem, since being obsessed with a single period of history isn't very common. The "after" definitely had a faster pace, but neither the "before" nor the "after" messed up, pacing-wise. I was never bored.

I also really liked how Brandes didn't shy away from tough topics. There were some very emotional, bloody, and hard scenes in this book -- namely the ones at the beginning of the "after" segment of the book, and the ones at the very end. This is technically Christian fiction, but I appreciated that Brandes showed the horribleness of what happened to the Romanovs, and also the emotional consequences for the survivors.

Were there things I didn't like about Romanov? Yes. Finding a perfect book is near impossible, which is why I so rarely give a five star rating to any books -- even ones I love. There was one paragraph near the end of the book where the theme of the novel is pretty much summarized... and I wish the author had avoided doing this. I never see the purpose of laying out a message for the reader to see, and I feel Brandes did a good enough job weaving her message into the narrative that having the paragraph didn't really add much to the story.

Content (Possible Spoilers)

Recommended for ages 14 and up.

TRIGGER WARNING: A character attempts suicide, but does not succeed. The actions this character took are not glorified by any means.
No swearing as far as I can remember. Kissing.
There are several brutal scenes in the book with a lot of blood, not gory, but maybe enough to upset very sensitive readers.