I wanted to like this book. I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this book. But the truth is I didn't. As a huge fan of Lucille Ball, I've read every factual book there is about her, and in this novelization where its "imagined" that she had an affair with the authors grandfather, I just didn't buy any of it.

SO many "facts" were wrong, which to be fair, in the authors notes at the end, he admits he changed a lot. But he did more than change a lot in my opinion, he lied. He COULD have taken the truth about events in Lucille Ball's life and told a much better story, even with the imagined affair, but he didn't. Did he not bother to research?

For me the breaking point was at a supposed Q&A with the Arnaz's at the Desilu Ranch where Desi supposedly says to the reporters - "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair and even THAT'S not real". Except he didn't say that at the ranch in front of reporters. He said it to the packed 300 seat audience on the first night of shooting the 1st show of the 3rd season of I Love Lucy. WHY make something up, when the TRUTH was so much more full of drama? And this happened over and over. In one chapter he says she actually SAID the word "pregnant" in an episode because she was adamant no man was going to tell her what she could say on her own show. This too NEVER happened, and the TRUTH is much more dramatic. So again I had to ask, why lie when the truth will do?

For me, this book was ruined by that kind of writing. I find it lazy storytelling. If this is supposed to be fiction, but about a true person (or persons) and their lives, shouldn't the reader be able to expect factual information woven into the fiction? Lord knows, Lucy's life had more than enough actual drama than to have to change events around that never happened, yet are SO well documented.

Yes, people will read this book and like it - and those will overall be folks that dont know the REAL story, which is MUCH more interesting than this turned out to be. The man who had the "affair" with Lucy, I found to be unlikable and with a number of chapters at the end devoted to his poor wife (who I really didn't give a damn about at that point, since she was rarely brought up at all with any meaning during the course of the book itself) seemed wasted. I dont see Lucille Ball ever having an affair with this type of man, and we DO know she did date and have at least two affairs.

If I had to say anything to this author, it would be - "You should have stuck with the truth, it would have been a better book."

The Queen of Tuesday is part memoir and part novel, with Lucille Ball at the heart of the story. Darin Strauss paints a vivid picture of his grandfather’s potential affair with an icon of the times.

I loved the historically accurate details. I am a huge Lucille Ball fan and that drew me to this book.

I felt like I had a difficult time connecting with the characters in the first half of the book. The second half drew me back in to the story and kept me until the end. I liked this book a lot and would recommend to anyone who enjoys historical fiction about the 1950s. Make sure you stick around to read the afterword.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC In exchange for an honest review.

A book about Lucille Ball an involving novel a book that kept me reading late into the night.So well written a true page turner.#netgalley#randomhouse

I started reading The Queen of Tuesday on a Thursday evening, not really sure what to expect. At 6am Friday morning I was still awake, captivated and totally hooked on this book. I don't even remember the last time I stayed up all night long completely addicted to a story.

I have been entranced by Lucille Ball since I was a child. I was already familiar with her not so TV sitcom perfect life with Desi Arnaz. However, this story was new to me. Overall, it captures the charm of old Hollywood, the magic and nostalgia of the 1950's, as well as family secrets and drama. All of this told with a quite enchanting and dreamy writing style.

This novel/ family memoir is everything you could ask for to escape into a book for awhile.

I've been excited about this book since I first heard about it, and it did not disappoint. The characters sucked you into the story and the story kept you turning pages as fast as you could. I devoured it in a day. I loved it.

The Queens of Tuesday by Darin Strauss is an interesting book that is part historical fiction part family memoir.

The author states in his “Instead of Afterword” that Lucille Ball as a character was part of the inspiration of the novel, but that it was also written with the thoughts of his own torrid and dramatic family history as well. To me, he uses the plot and concept of “there is more then meets the eye” and what you see is merely “the tip of the iceberg” concept in regards to his family’s history and uses Lucille as his character face and muse.

It is an interesting and bold concept, and for that I give him props, as well as the time frame of the 1950s (of which I am a huge fan of anything 1950-1960s). However, the blending of the two concepts sometimes can be confusing, and for some readers who may not read the afterword, or understand the author’s thought process, it could disappoint them to see that a lot of what he depicts is not in fact anything of the great actress that we know so well.

I am a huge fan of Ms. Lucille Ball, and I had hoped to read a book about her, however this was not that kind of book. As someone else mentioned, if you remove the concept of her from this book and just imagine it as another women and family in this time frame and situation, you do have yourself a more interesting book. I just wish that Ms. Ball would have not been used in this fictional novel.

3/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

I tried to get into this book and it just didn’t click. There were too much focus on setting the stage and not enough in character development.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. I wanted to love this, and I will say the writing is well done. I read many books that are essentially a fictional tale of a famous personality. The ones that work are the ones that at least let us recognize some part of the persona, or even things we do know about them, based on history. This one just didn't work. I literally had to check the description to make sure I was reading the book I thought I'd chosen. If you remove ANY part of Lucille Ball and read this as strictly fiction, about a celebrity couple in the 40s and 50s, this book will be a good choice for you.

Three stars for the writing. The author paints vivid scenes, unfortunately, they are not cohesive. I don't think any Lucille Ball fan will enjoy this book. I imagine if someone had taken "fictional" liberties with a deceased relative and gave them vices that I know they didn't have.
As a bookseller, I would find it hard to suggest this to any of my readers unless they seemed to like that sort of thing, but as I've learned through the years, readers stay away from anything that takes real people and twists them into fictional characters.