THE DIANA CHRONICLES by TINA BROWN

THE DIANA CHRONICLES

BY TINA BROWN

THE BLURB:-

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she 'the People's Princess,' who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?

Tina Brown knew Diana personally, knew her worlds, understands its players and has far-reaching insight into the royals. In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and get to know the society they inhabit... as you never have before.

THE REALITY:-

I think the problem I had with this book was that it was already thirteen years old when I chanced upon it in a charity shop, having coveted it for a while. Therefore, all the allegations and backstories were old hat, having already been put out there, digested and confabulated upon. Nothing in this book came as a surprise and I learnt very little new about Diana and her life. In fact, the most interesting pieces were actually the information pertaining to her childhood years, where I got to find out a bit about her mother, her father and their lives/ backgrounds and their relationship.

Was Diana's paranoia with regard to Camilla justified? Hell, yeah! Look who's married to Charles now! I do find it awfully sad that neither Charles nor Diana put as much effort into their marriage as they could have done- he was too quick to run back into the fawning arms of his mistress, where he should have been at least trying to sort things out with Diana; and maybe expanding upon their family, producing the daughter they both (in all likelihood) wanted as well as possibly more kids! Sadly, it looks like he simply didn't want her enough to continue a sexual relationship with her- a blow for any woman, and I can understand why she took her affections elsewhere. I realise that Diana was someone who needed professional help, but people in their position, with their money and influence are able to get it.

As a fellow ex-eating disorder, I always empathised with Diana, but I do think she was- for want of a better term- bonkers, and someone who would have needed ongoing psychiatric help had she lived. She was always my favourite, though (maybe because of this reason), and I often reflect upon my home life as a late teenager/ early twenty-something as being like 'I was Princess Diana (how vainglorious... and ridiculous!😉) and my family the royal family.' In that I suppose I mean that I was new and modern, and they were old-fashioned and stiff upper lip. Which, in my opinion, gets you nowhere.  I also do think that there's more to her death than meets the eye, so I do understand why conspiracy theories still abound.

This is a very good, well-researched, detailed read if you don't already know the backstory (and really, by now, don't we all?)