The Birth of Venus

Summary (from the publisher): Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

Review: The Birth of Venus is the coming of age story of a young girl from a middle class family of Florence during the Medici power period. I liked Alessandra for her intelligence and her yearning to learn and create art. The most absorbing part of this novel was the prologue, which is in fact the conclusion of the novel. Dunant does an excellent job of creating suspense and interest in her prologue so that I was more than excited to jump into part one. However, the rest of the novel fell flat after the promising introduction. I didn't find much in this novel to set it aside from dozens of other historical fiction novels that center around a young female who yearns for things she shouldn't and finds love along the way. Why must the heroine in all of these novels long for socially unacceptable things? And why is so much of historical fiction center around a heroine? Since when did this genre have to be chick lit? I want to read something new and fresh in historical fiction for a change. Additionally, the description of Alessandra sleeping with her much older and very gay husband was disturbing. That aspect of the novel was certainly unusual, as was the love triangle shown in this novel, which I won't reveal for the sake of those who may still want to read this novel. Additionally, I did love the description of art and artists. Overall a decent enough read with some distinguishing features, but nothing that indicates to me why this became a New York Times Bestseller over the many, many other historical novels out there.

Stars: 3