A Review of My Name is Victoria

My Name is Victoria is a book by Lucy Worsley, a well-known historian in the UK. Miss V Conroy is the daughter of John Conroy, comptroller to the mother of Her Royal Highness, the Princess Victoria. When John Conroy brings her to Kensington Palace with the idea of making her a playmate for the young princess, things appear to go well, at first. But this has immersed Miss V Conroy in a world of secrets and lies that she could never have imagined.

Historical fiction is my jam, okay? I'm loving these YA books coming out based on historical events. Maybe it will help encourage an interest in history in teens. I wish they'd been around when I was a teen - maybe I would have discovered my interest in it sooner. Historical fiction makes historical events more real and alive in ways you don't get out of a sometimes-dry history textbook. However, I do need to say that as with all historical fiction, historical accuracy is always in question, and this definitely plays into alternate history, too.

This is also a historical fiction with a huge emphasis on female friendships. Miss V and Victoria feel like truly good friends at some points, and have a royalty-and-attendant relationship at other times. It's nice to see in historical fiction, where the narrative normally swings towards romance. And I do love books with a strong focus on friendship.

The Princess Victoria feels like a fully realised, living character, rather than a stereotyped royal. She's a product of her upbringing and a realistic child. I knew of John Conroy from various period dramas about the early life of Queen Victoria, so his true nature wasn't a huge surprise to me. Miss V, though... for the first person POV character, she hasn't got much life. She has little-to-no agency, most big events in her life being decided for her by others. She's only too happy to be dressed down next to Victoria, to show the princess off in her best light. It actually makes a change to have historical fiction narrated by someone who is happy to do her duty, rather than one who is rebellious, with a firmly 21st century outlook on things. But she is definitely not the most memorable character in the novel.

Spoiler: One of the problems with historical fiction, especially that dealing with well-known people, is that it's unlikely to have a real plot twist. However, this one does, putting it firmly into alternate history. And I'm... not sure if it worked. The problem is that Queen Victoria is such an iconic figure that the idea of her being someone different is hard to swallow. And by many accounts, Victoria and Albert were a couple who were actually in love, even if they sometimes fought like all married couples do. So his romance here with Miss V seems unlikely at best. Although I did enjoy them when they were together on page, it never happened in real life, and that felt off. /spoiler

Recommended for teens (and above, but it will work for younger teens and tweens, too) who are studying the Victorians.