An Actual Report of a Book – Kleopatra

Kleopatra By: Karen Essex
Fiction: historical, 367 pages copyright 2001

This is a fictious story based on the life of Cleopatra VII, who is the Cleopatra that everyone think of when one mentions Cleopatra. (Apparently the name Cleopatra during the Ptolemaic dynasty was like Louise in French royalty.) Anyway, this story starts when Cleopatra was a young girl and her mother dies and end right before she meets Julius Caesar. There is a second book entitled Kleopatra volume II that picks up from there. It appears to be a well researched book that is still entertaining. However, the author gives no reason why she uses Kleopatra for the spelling of that name instead of the more common Cleopatra. But she does point out repeating that Cleopatra was no Liz Taylor look alike, but in fact quite ugly by today’s standards if only because of her nose. But that does not stop anyone in the book from being obsessed with sex. Which for most of the characters makes perfect sense; however, I found it odd how much sex the eunuchs were having. I thought the main reasons royal women were taken care of by eunuchs was because they were not interested in sex anymore. (I mean that is often why one does that to a pet.) And part of it makes sense, as they could in many ways still please women and men and doing so to get favors and allies from powerful people would be acceptable and common at that time. (They were Greek, most of the people in the book were gay, bi, or into young teens) But, the one eunuch’s thoughts sounded like a horny gay teenage boy. Anyway, it seamed odd to me, but not so odd that I didn’t enjoy the book.