This book by Stanton Rabin has a great — and amazingly, true — premise: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to the island of St. Helena after his defeat at Waterloo, and ends up developing an intimate and very deep friendship with a 14-year-old girl.

Unfortunately, while the book is often fun and adventuresome and Besty is an intriguing and worthy heroine, the book gets much too sappy and silly. It’s hard to place my finger on it, really. Like the part when she has a terrible crush on an officer, and is told that she’s only “liked” because they figured she put out for the Emperor. Or the part when she sees her brothers’ tutor die in a hot air balloon accident, that is partly her fault, and then goes to the ball a couple nights later. No remorse, no punishment, no consequences. Besty has a tendency to be petulant, too, whining and often acting much too young for her age. And the Emperor — well, I know that Rabin did her research, but really. I found it hard to believe that Napoleon would act the way he did.

The end notes to the book are almost more interesting than the book itself. Rabin mentions that the real Besty wrote an autobiography of her relationship with Napoleon (Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon by Elizabeth Balcome Abell), which probably would be the better read. Unfortunately, it’s out of print.

UPDATE: So, Julie forwarded an email sent to her by Rabin, which, among other things, informed me that I was wrong saying the book is out of print. It was out of print for quite a while, but has since been reissued as To Befriend an Emperor (an “attractive, illustrated edition,” according to Amazon). I still think it would be more fascinating to read Betsy’s own story, even if it’s not great “literature”. 🙂