The Power of Blonde

THE BLONDE               By: Anna Godbersen               3 Stars

I picked up this book without knowing one thing about it. I have read other books by Anna Godbersen, which I loved. Those books consisted of The Luxe and Pretty Young Things young adult series. I liked those enough that when I saw another book by Anna I couldn’t wait to see what she had for us.  

As I got the book I noticed the cover had an out of focus face that reminded me of Marilyn Monroe. Then I opened the book and found that it was indeed about Miss Monroe. As I read the book description I became even more intrigued; Marilyn as a Soviet spy whose mission is to get close to President Kennedy. Interesting.

The author did a great job in researching history of Classic Hollywood and the connections of various pop culture icons. While I have heard a few conspiracy theories about the assassination of John F Kennedy, apparently there are a few things I haven’t heard. Godbersen puts most of these theories together into an intriguing storyline of how Marilyn could have been connected to the assassination.

In THE BLONDE we learn that Marilyn’s dumb blonde persona was all a ruse. In reality she was an intelligent person who was able to use her bombshell status to get the information she desired. By playing a person who seemed incapable of understanding certain issues, she was able to obtain information that appeared to be spoken in safety since wouldn’t really be able to comprehend the importance of those words anyway.

In my opinion, that portion of the story was believable. Based on her status, we do know Marilyn understood how to use her sexuality to get what she wanted. Using it for a dual purpose of also gaining sensitive information is not much of a stretch.

If you look at the history behind the story, Marilyn was connected to people who had communist sympathies, for lack of a better word. It wouldn’t necessarily be a stretch to see her being used by the KGB to get what they wanted while blackmailing her with information about who her real father was. The part that I found hard to swallow was the ending. In reality everything was put together perfectly to make this a great conspiracy theory involving Marilyn with JFK’s assassination. I will explain more of my reasoning below in the SPOILER ALERT section.

All in all I did love the idea of the book and I even love Anna as an author. Part of the reason I enjoy historical fiction is how it creates a desire for me to do my own research on what really happened. I wanted to know if the Kennedy, Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana relationships actually existed and I wanted to know what the Oswald twin thing was. I found the book enjoyable in that regard.

Besides the minor difference in opinion based on the final outcome of the book as described in the SPOILER ALERT, I did have a few other details in the book I didn’t like. I know the reputation of Marilyn Monroe and JFK was based on their infidelity issues. Unfortunately, Godbersen could be quite crude in her language with the f-bomb and with short descriptions of their escapades.  I know they had affairs, but I didn’t really want to read about it. In fact, I found myself hating both of them at the beginning of the book based on these details.

First Lady Jackie, was also portrayed in an unfavorable way. I found it hard to personally really care about any of the characters and now I am working on going back to my original opinion of them, which is, I don’t agree with everything they did, but I had respect for them in their various icon statuses.

This book wasn’t executed as well as her other series. Luckily, I still love the ideas the author comes up with and anxiously await her next title.

 

 

SPOILER ALERT!!!

 

 

Instead of Marilyn faking her death I think she should have actually died as in real life. Her death still could have been suicide, accident, or murder depending on how the story continued. It could have been more daddy issues, distress over not being able to save Kennedy (or even get the chance to warn him), about her own traitor status to her nation and the man she loved, the KGB getting to her or any number of resolutions.

I found her fake death pushed the book from being a very real possibility back into a work of fiction, which was an abrupt switch in a book based on actual events and incredible ties. Everything was too abrupt. She dies, then the president dies all within a few pages and nothing momentous happens.  Then the story wraps up far too quickly to make sense.

On top of that, I didn’t really like the whole Oswald twin thing being brought up. I had to look into that further to figure out the twin referred to a look alike as Oswald didn’t actually have a twin. Again, that part of the story was unnecessary and didn’t go anywhere or aid the plot.

There was another minor issue that bothered me. Marilyn is involved in drugs and alcohol previous to her death, yet in her reborn self she doesn’t find it appealing. This scene was about 30 years after her death, but I still found it hard to believe based on the simplicity of the statement. No struggle to overcome and no desire for the former addiction. Hmm.

One of the biggest disappointments was not tying Robert Kennedy’s assassination five years later into the story. Right when the story starts going somewhere, nothing happens and it ends. If the whole KGB thing was brought up, I thought it would have been a nice touch to add Bobby in there since there is a conspiracy that both Kennedy’s were taken out because of problems surrounding the Bay of Pigs and other political issues. Even if Marilyn didn’t get along with Bobby, it would have given her more purpose in what she fake died for.