Review: The Kingdom of Back
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Marie Lu offers up an imaginative novelization of the early life of Maria Anna ("Marianne," Nannerl") Mozart and her brother Wolfgang ("Woferl") Amadeus Mozart. Both child prodigies, the gender constraints of the era in which Nannerl lived meant that it was unseemly for her to continue to perform publicly and seek a career as a musician, unlike her now better known younger brother. Taking its name from an imaginary world the two siblings created, the “Kingdom of Back” (“Das Königreich Rücken”), the story takes the reader into a dangerous world in which both Nannerl and Woferl are competing for the attention of a powerful dark fairy prince, Hyacinth. The reader sees the events of both their real and imaginary lives through Nannerl's eyes and feels her immense struggle to accept her father's preferring his son over her, and the expected limitations of her social role.
This is an interesting YA novel that introduces younger readers to both the historical gender constraints of the "Age of Enlightment" and to the Mozart siblings.
I also listened to the audiobook, narrated by Lauren Ezzo.
I received digital and paper review copies of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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