500 Years of Sex

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge - Eleanore Herman

       We've all been there.  Looking around aimlessly at a bookstore.  Sometimes it's a beautiful, interesting cover.  Sometimes it's a cleaver, funny title.  But you see that book and you go...I should read this, despite knowing nothing else about the author or the book.   The title "pops!" at you and you add this to your long to-be-read pile.

       That's how I found out about this book.

       Herman's first book (there a sequel of sorts, Sex with the Queen) is a popular history about sex with kings, or more precisely, kings having sex with their royal mistresses.  The book mostly goes from the say the 1300 or 1400s to the 1930's with King Edward VII of England.

       The part of the problem I had with this book was that while the subject is interesting (especially for someone who enjoys history), the way the book is categorized becomes a bit tedious.  The book revolves around different subjects relating to the royal mistresses (their children with the king, mistresses getting gifts, how they did/did not wield political powers, reaction of people to the mistresses etc.).  This didn't bother me until towards the end of the book when I realized she kept going back to the same mistresses to now show this new subject affected them.  The non-linear telling worked, but only until you get tired of hearing yet again about such and such royal mistress yet again.  Plus, which may bother a casual reader, she doesn't necessarily tell you what time period the king lived in each time you're revising the mistress, which can become confusing.

       While this was an interesting book, it wasn't absolutely fantastic.  Will I probably check out the sequel?  Yeah.  It'd be worth giving it a try as well. It would be interesting if this book maybe had been given a bit more a spin on it, rather than just (what it mostly seemed like) facts.  A feminist-leaning take on the subject instead of an interesting, yet mostly factual history would be an interesting read.  Furthermore, the ending could use a bit of an update since they do talk about the current Prince of Wales and information on that has changed since when the book was published.

Rating:  3 of 5.