A Golden Web by Barbara Quick

A Golden Web by Barbara Quick

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publish Date: April 6, 2010

Hardcover, 272 pages

My Review:
From the start A Golden Web is a very enchanting book.  I found myself liking Alessandra from the very beginning.  She is a smart girl in a culture where women are mainly there to marry and to tend house and have babies.  On top of all of these usual expectations, Alessandra is the oldest daughter and has a stepmother who is not overly fond of her.

Alessandra does the smart thing, she gets her brother to help teach her the ways of survival and how to be a boy.  With this knowledge she is able to sneak away from the convent and start a new life undercover.

The plot is wonderful and the build up is great.  The characters are amazing.  I really liked Alessandra and her brother.  But somehow as the book continues some things seemed to get lost to me.  I felt like things branched out a little too much and I just lost track of what was going on.

However, I did enjoy the book and look forward to more by Ms. Quick.  I just felt there was an effort to tie up too much in too little time.  But please don't take my word for it, try this book yourself.  You may find yourself loving it.  It has a strong heroine who knows what she wants, a time period I was not completely familiar with (so I found it fascinating) and strong supporting characters and a good plot to push it along.  Overall it's still a wonderful book.


Rating: 3.75/5.0

About the Book (from Amazon.com):
Alessandra is desperate to escape—from her stepmother, who’s locked her away for a year; from the cloister that awaits her if she refuses the marriage plans that have been made for her; from the expectations that limit her and every other girl in fourteenth-century Italy. There’s no tolerance in her village for her keen intelligence and her unconventional ideas.

In defiant pursuit of her dreams, Alessandra undertakes an audacious quest, her bravery equaled only by the dangers she faces. Disguised and alone in a city of spies and scholars, Alessandra will find a love she could not foresee—and an enduring fame.

In this exquisite imagining of the centuries-old story of Alessandra Giliani, the world’s first female anatomist, distinguished novelist Barbara Quick gives readers the drama, romance, and rich historical detail for which she is known as she shines a light on an unforgotten—and unforgettable—heroine.

About the Author (from Amazon.com):
Writer and poet Barbara Quick is the author of the novels Vivaldi's Virgins and Northern Edge, winner of the Discover Prize. A Golden Web is her first book for teen readers. An avid traveler and student of other languages, she has run an international boardinghouse; written everything from self-help books to humor columns to grant requests for disadvantaged children; and done whatever jobs she needed to do -- from landscape gardening to catering to editing -- to allow her to continue writing. She lives with her teenage son, Julian, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she takes frequent classes and occasionally performs with a Brazilian dance troupe.

FTC Information: I received this book from Traveling ARC Tours for review.  I have Amazon links on my review pages but I do not make any money from these because of NC laws.  I put them solely for people to check out the books on a retail site.