The other Boleyn girl – Phlippa Gregory

I didn't think I will ever finish reading this book, even after many people recommended it to me, I always thought history is not my thing. One day though, I opened it to check it out and know exactly what it is about but I couldn't put it down and stayed up all night reading it. I think the book is great! Even if you are not interested in the history itself, read the book because it's such a great novel.

What made the story even more interesting is that I have been to London tower and the tour guide showed us where Anne Boleyn and many other people were executed, where she was locked before she was killed, it was the same room that she stayed in on the night of her coronation; so I could picture the place and the people when I was reading the book.

The book starts with the execution of the Duke of Buckingham, Mary who is the narrator in the book was only 13 then, and she was sitting watching the execution with everyone in the court and she thought that the king will stop it at last minute, but he didn't, they did cut the duke's head and took it to the king.

Mary was sent to the French court with her Brother, George and her older sister, Anne when they were all children. She came to the English court at the age of 12 when she married one of the king courtiers. Two years after her marriage, the King 'noticed' her and made it clear he was interested in her. Her family, the Boleyn Howard's, forced her to leave her husband's bed so that she can be the king's mistress and try to give him a son to hold him, because Queen Katherine didn't give him a son and she is getting old. Mary did stay with him for few years and had a daughter and a son from him, but just after she had the son and while she was still in her bed, the King got interested in her sister Anne and was in love with her and wanted no one but her after that.

Mary was allowed to go back to her husband, and he took her. He started taking her out and they were lovers for the first time, they loved each other again but before Mary go to tell him that she does love him he died from a plague.

Anne Boleyn did her evil work on the king, he was enchanted by her and wanted her so badly that he divorced his wife Queen Katherine by saying that he shouldn't have married her in the first place because she was his brother's widow, Anne made him forget how much in love with Katherine he once was.

After marrying Anne, she did give him a daughter and then miscarried few times, every time she does her family try to hide it from the king and everyone else, but in the last time there was no way they could do that and the baby who was dead turn out to be a 'monster' as they called it. What you get from the story is that she had the baby from her brother, and by the end of the story her brother and four other friends of his were executed because they were accused of sleeping with her too.

Mary found a guy who loved her and who wanted to live with her in a farm with her two children, she wanted to live with him there. They got married in secret and then went back to court, but no one knew they are married until Mary was pregnant with his baby and everyone had to know about it. After her sister and brother were executed, they left and went to live in the farm house.

Even after knowing all that about the story, or if you already know more about the history of it, the book is still worth reading.

The society

When we see how the society here is changing so fast, people would say that it the society here is multi-cultural but I would say it is becoming a culture crasher. When you look at how the people here behave, they no longer are attached to their religion or culture and if you ever ask them why they are acting in a certain way they give answers like we are 'westernized' or 'trying to fit in', but fit in where? Can't you just try to learn good things from other societies but still never forget who you really are?

When you walk in a mall and an emiraty woman gets asked why she is wearing what she is wearing, while another lady who is barely wearing anything is never asked, and also is best served anywhere she goes!

When you see people smoking around children and no one comments on that because the people who are smoking are not locals and so no one should say anything to them, everyone is expected to welcome them with open arms no matter what they do or how they dress, and when you come to think of it, this would probably never happen in an American or most European cities, I'm not saying that those cities or the people living in them are any better than us, but why can't the people here take the good qualities in the so called western society?

What point did we reach when little boys comment about 'two men going to the same toilet cubicle' and when little girls are insulted in their face because they are emiraties. Smoking is accepted, the Hijab is mostly worn as a cultural dress not as a religious dress.

People are judged by what they are wearing, what car they are driving or what bag they are carrying.

These are only simple things, there is much more that my fellow bloggers already mentioned, my point of writing all that is, shouldn't we as Muslims protest and try to change this, if not as Muslims then maybe as people with morals and values who are expected to raise their children in this society that is becoming worse and worse everyday.

That was me ranting to myself at 3 in the morning, so excuse the mistakes. :P