A visit to the perennially mysterious last days of the Romanov family. The small, but needed, redeeming twist at the end was a bit disappointing. The story did not particularly hold my attention, but it did spark my interest in exploring that part of world history. ( )

This one is going to the "Abandoned" shelf, I think.

My main problem with this book is that when you read fiction about real events you need something really powerful and captivating in the way the story is told - because actually you already know how it all ends.
So you need to be connected with things happening on every page, you need something that will build up the suspense and keep your interest up.
As a good example of it, the tv show 'The Tudors' comes to mind - you know very well how it goes, but you still keep hoping that maybe Anne will survive this time.

Unfortunately The Kitchen Boy lacks that bit of something. And even though there are hints about 'a twist in the end', I don't really care what it is - despite all twists in the world, the Romanovs' story ended the way it ended.

There are also minor problems, and although they are not so important, I can't help but rant.

First time I wanted to put the book down was when Nikolai and Alexandra started kissing in front of everyone. Like, really?

Second time I wanted to put it down (and actually did, mid-page and practically mid-sentence) was when Alexandra called Anastasia "Anya". I understand that author isn't Russian, but how difficult is it to research that the proper diminutive for Anastasia would be Nastya?
And yes, I googled specifically about Anastasia Nikolaevna - she, as any other Anastasia in Russia, was called only Nastya (and different forms of it, such as Nastenka).

Third, fourth, fifth and so on time I wanted to put the book down was when another Russian word was very weirdly spelled or incorrectly/unreasonably used.
The necessity behind putting some of those words in the text eludes me completely.
Especially I don't get why it's important to use 'kommunizm' instead of communism, 'bolsheviki' instead of Bolsheviks or 'arkhivy' instead of archives. But my personal favorite was, I suppose, the unexpected 'troopy' instead of dead bodies. Wrong form, by the way, in that sentence it couldn't be used in nominative case.

Also it seems like the author is a bit confused whether he wants to just use transliteration (as with 'konechno', 'shahmaty', 'russkogo'), or to get closer to the correct pronunciation (like using 'neechevo' for nichego, 'eezyoom' for izyum and 'eedee-ot' for idiot), or just to give foreign words weird-looking spelling (as with 'xoroshow' and 'xhorosho' - it's 'horosho', for God's sake; or 'zdravstvoojte' - seems like a real Dutch word, this one, especially with a j thrown in there).

Again, all these would have been just minor troubles if the story itself was great. Buuut.... nope. ( )

This book will surprise you. I love to have my expectations for a book to be completely wrong.

Don't be fooled by the lukewarm beginning and the lenghty routine descriptions. It's description of the assassination and transport of the dead royal family is amazing, as well as the secret at the end. ( )

Through the eyes of Leonka, kitchen boy and sometime playmate of the Tsarevich Aleksei, the reader is transported back to the final months and days of the Romanov family, held in isolation in Yekaterinburg in 1917. Robert Alexander paints a portrait of a genuinely loving, though colossally naïve, family, the last in a long line of Russian royalty that began with Tsar Michael in 1613. Though we know full well how the situation will end despite some dramatic glimmers of hope, the narrative is not unduly bleak and contains a surprising twist. At just 229 pages, The Kitchen Boy is also a relatively rapid read for someone looking to squeeze in another book before the end of the year. ( )

This extremely well-written novel reads like a true-life adventure story. It's a tale of the murder of the Russian imperial family in 1918 in their place of exile in Siberia, told by one of the people who were present at the time. The plot ranges from revolutionary times to the present day and involves a deep, dark mystery: why were two of the bodies never discovered? The reader is quickly drawn into the story, and the writing is such that even though you know a terrible fate that awaits the last Tsar and his family, you keep hoping the ending will be different. This last part of the book is excellent with some unexpected plot twists, which brings the tale to a bittersweet conclusion.
The author often is lengthy in his writing and provides the reader with a rich feel for Russian culture and history.
While Alexander tells a fictional story, he does so while drawing heavily from historical events. Real people did real things, and some of those things were heinous. Looking back through nearly 100 years of history, it is easy to see what was not clear then. In murdering the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks revealed their true colors as ruthless murderers, willing to do anything to grasp and maintain power. And in doing so, they paved the way for profound brutality and ruthlessness that continue today. ( )