Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I have read most of her books & this was by far the best one so far! I couldn't put it down!
Rating:
Summary: Romance, reality and terror
Review: I have read numerous books on this topic, from Quentin Reynolds 1950's schoolbook biography through the memoirs of Madame Campan and Oliver Bernier's edition of the letters between Marie Antoinette and her mother, Empress Maria Theresa. In none of these previous books have I found the small touches of personality which humanize this well-biographed personality of Revolutionary France. In specific, I find the details of her relationship to her own daughter, Marie Therese, of great interest. That Marie Antoinette was aware of the reasonably immature snobbishness of her daughter is an interesting insight. Of course the incredible brutality of the revolutionaries - in the name of freedom - and the making of both the king and his wife into scapegoats, as well as the vileness of the pamplets published by ambitious would be kings and unfortunately, relatives of the king create sympathy for both monarchs. The revolution was about the abolition of privilege, yet the very people taking down the nobility, took on their former privileges for themselves, and would soon replace the late Louis XVI with his two brothers, a nephew and two emperors, demonstrating how pointless the deaths of the monarchs was. Revolution, indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious
Review: I heard so many wonderful things about this book, so was disappointed to find it so tedious. Fraser obviously did exhaustive research on her subject and I'm dying to learn more. But I'm finding the book very dry. I keep putting it down and have read several books (including David McCullough's "Mornings On Horseback" and Kazuo Ishiguro's "When We Were Orphans") while trying to get through Fraser's Marie Antoinette. I'm not sure if I'll make it.
Rating:
Summary: The 'Austrian Woman' Revealed
Review: I just finished this book last night. I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend, knowing nothing about Marie Antoinette or this particular era of French history. I finished the book, voraciously reading its final chapters. The "Austrian Woman's" story is completely fascinating as told by Antonia Fraser. Ms. Fraser rebukes a lot of scurrilous stories and assumptions that have been made over the past few hundreds years regarding the French Queen. Although I was not familiar with some of the rumors (lesbianism, orgies, lovers, and more excesses) it is easy, after reading the book, to see how these stories became attached to Marie Antoinette. Fraser illustrates the life of a Royal as a difficult position. The Machiavellian intrigues of court life are fascinating. Even the day-to-day events like the dressing of the Queen are shown to be hilarious in their courtly pomp. Particularly interesting is how Fraser dramatizes what it must have been like to have an entire country direct its dissatisfaction at the Queen. The final chapters detailing the imprisonment of the Royal Family in the tower are heartbreaking, no matter what their excesses were. As the end approaches and the Queen's close friend's head was paraded around on a pike, one wonders why the Royals were meant to suffer so. Ms. Fraser treats her subject fairly. She seems to admire Marie Antoinette, but doesn't excuse some of her miscalculations. Fraser's summation in the final chapters is particularly enlightening. I highly recommend Antonia Fraser's MARIE ANTOINETTE: THE JOURNEY. It is an engrossing read, and the court life of Marie and King Louis XVI is quite fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best bios I've read in awhile...
Review: I literally could not put this book down. This is honestly the first time that I've ever read anything about Marie Antoinette that managed to humanize her. From the mundane--but nonetheless interesting--details (did you know that at age 14 Marie A. had braces put on her teeth, a cutting-edge technology at the time?) to the broad strokes that put the whole story in perspective, the author manages to paint a picture of an innocent girl used as a pawn on the global stage of European politics, and then as a spark point used to explode the French Revolution. The evolution from girl to somewhat frivolous young woman to mature mother resigned to a terrible fate is deftly portrayed. The only flaw that I can cite is that the events leading up to the Revolution are somewhat sketchily explained, so that the whole mess seems to burst rather suddenly onto the scene. But perhaps that's what the author was trying to do, so that the reader is as surprised by the suddenness of the fury as Marie Antoinette seems to have been.... A must read....
Rating:
Summary: Deeply Moving
Review: I normally read history looking for battles and excitement (Napoleon bios for example), or looking for funny stuff. In this case I bought the book because of the charming picture on the cover, and was surprised to find myself so deeply moved. Marie Antoinette was flawed, as Fraser tells us often enough, but she was also good and lovable. To see her slowly, inexoribly moving toward what we know is going to be a horrible fate is quite gut-wrenching, but compelling all the same. Fraser has also done a fine job of setting up the social atmosphere of the period (and I couldn't care less if she got a few details wrong). Whichever reviewer said that it should be a TV movie was right! This modern take on a traditionally maligned woman could easily capture the hearts of millions of North American television--or movie--viewers.
Rating: 
Summary: They Love Her Or Hate Her
Review: I read many reviews of this book and other works on this Queen, certainly one of history's more controversial Monarchs. This was the first major biography I had read and I was surprised by the intensity of feeling this woman arouses, she either has enthusiastic admirers or others whose feelings are just as intense but negative. I think this book is reasonably evenhanded, if it does favor one view of the subject I would say the author is more favorably disposed toward Marie Antoinette. This work in no manner is a fawning biography of a person who was without faults. Her failings are identified, but they are not sensationalized. One matter that struck me was the outrageous pamphlets that were printed and circulated about her. Compared to the tabloids of today what you pass at the supermarket checkout is extremely mild. This woman as Queen was accused with graphic drawings of every imaginable offense that came to the printer's salacious minds. This public humiliation that was routine years before she was imprisoned provided fertile ground for the fictions that were heaped upon her at her, "trial". She certainly may have been guilty of errors but most would seem to be errors of omission rather than conspired strategy. As a 14-year-old semi-literate child she was married to another adolescent and then spent 7 years waiting for the marriage to be consummated. As customary as certain rituals may have been, being required to give birth in front of a crowd is demented. She was accused of having an affair with a certain Duke, so what? If she did not she would have been an exception to the rule. When a King had a favored mistress she was given a place at court. I thought, "The Affair Of The Necklace", was well documented and put that accusation against the Queen to rest. As to the, "let them eat cake", comment, I don't believe she was clever enough to utter what was a well-known phrase long before she was even born. When the charges that were leveled at her including crimes against her children, it is clear this crowd that paraded heads about the city was interested in adding hers. Whether she was guilty of any crime was hardly proven, and rarely was there any evidence given. At least from this reading I would surmise that the vilification of this woman was largely invented or spectacularly exaggerated. To the extent she did cause mischief it is hard to identify what it may have been, for distortion and not truth was the currency of late 18th Century France.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read..wish ending was better for Marie!
Review: I was so sad to have this book end! As you read the book, you learn to appreciate Marie for the person she was. There were so many facts about her life that I did not know. As you turn the pages, you share her good times and bad times. I wish the ending was better...but she was courageous to the end. Sorry that she had such a rotten ending. Buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: More Sinned Against Than Sinning
Review: It is difficult to know where to begin to describe what an incredible experience it was to read this biography of Marie Antoinette. The author obviously has spent an immense amount of time and effort doing her research, and her way of telling the story of a life lived over 200 years ago is nothing less than remarkable. For a week, I almost felt as though I were living a second life, one that I returned to every chance I could. Ms. Fraser's work is a labor of love, and her way of drawing the reader into the totality of the milieu of 18th century France is magical. I have not yet read the celebrated biography of John Adams, but I can hardly think that it surpasses this, by far the best biography I have read in thirty years. Marie Antionette - The Journey deserves much wider recognition, and Ms. Fraser should be proud of her magnificent accomplishment. It is truly an unforgettable book, and the French Queen and her story will remain with me always.
Rating:
Summary: Sparkling and Scholarly
Review: Lady Antonia Fraser has turned out another brilliant biography. Although she has left her native Great Britain for France in this life of Marie Antoinette, the result is a work that brings France's last Queen to life as vividly as any of her earlier efforts. Marie Antoinette was one of the younger children of Empress Maria Theresa, who used her off spring as bargaining chips to improve the Hapsburg Dynasty's position in Europe. Antoine, as she was known, was unfortunate enough to be the right age to marry the heir to the French throne. Fraser spends a lot of time discussing the cold blooded negotiations that preceded 14 year old Antoine's being shipped off to France to marry the 15 year old Dauphin. Not surprisingly, this marriage of children was unfruitful for several years. In reaction to this and to the iron clad etiquette of the court at Versailles, Marie Antoinette ( as she was now known) led a frivolous life of partying, gambling, and spending. Fraser does a good job in pointing out that Marie's spending habits were only a drop in the bucket of France's mounting economic crisis in the 1770s and 1780s, but her extreme visibility made her an easy target for the rising public anger against the monarchy. Fraser also does a good job of documenting the love affair Marie had with Count Axel Fersen as well as the infamous Diamond Necklace Affair, which ruined her reputation once and for all. After Louis XVI matured enough to father four children on Marie, the Queen settled down to a calmer, quieter life, but the damage was done. She had become the symbol of everything that was wrong with the Old Regime, and after 1789 she and her family slid to destruction. Fraser does an admirable job on the last harrowing years of the Queen's life, helping us recognize the dignity and courage displayed by the Royal Family in their darkest hour. Fraser concentrated primarily on Marie Antoinette's personal life. The events of Louis XVI's reign and of the Revolution are seen only as they directly affected the Queen. Throughout the book Fraser writes clearly and with a felicitous turn of phrase: the fishwives who harassed the Queen at Versailles were "mouthy battleaxes." Some of Fraser's wittiest comments are in the footnotes, including a delicious speculation on Benjamin Franklin's connection to the conception of the Queen's first child! Fraser's wit and humor combine with her sound scholarship to make Marie Antoinette: The Journey, a treasure not to be missed.
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