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.
Nicolas
Duhamel has transformed himself from an anti-climactic and safe guy into
Nicolas Kolt, the world famous author of The
Envelope. In the process he has become extremely arrogant and ended up
losing the only woman he truly loved. 
