It Ended Badly
If you’re looking for some light history, and something to read with your wine while consoling yourself that your most recent breakup wasn’t that bad, this is your book.
From Nero and Poppaea (…there is too much, I cannot sum up, but he killed a whole bunch of people in the aftermath), Lucrezia Borgia and Giovanni Sforza (in order to prevent an annulment, he needed to prove that his dick worked publicly. He declined), to Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor, this book goes through 13 messy break ups and describes precisely how messed up each was.
Best part: even though Elizabeth Taylor stole Debbie Reynold’s husband, they started out as best friends and ended as best friends. I firmly believe they’re in heaven, drinking a lot and making fun of Eddie Fisher and embarrassing Carrie (in between Liz’s fights and make-up sex with Richard Burton, always and forever, amen).
Also included: Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas, Henry VIII and the queens he had beheaded, and the absolute fucking worst of the worst, Norman Goddamn Mailer. (Spoiler: he stabbed his ex-wife at a party, and went on to have a lauded career while she declined into poverty. The patriarchy is trash.)
If you are still in the place in your break up where it is the worst thing that ever happened, and you still need to wallow, you may not be ready for this book yet. This for the next stage of healing, when you need to go “well, at least no one burned Rome to the ground in the course of this breakup.” And some of these stories end well- Liz Taylor and Debbie Reynolds may not have had the smoothest friendship, but in the end, it was ovaries before brovaries. Enjoy!
A history of heartbreak-replete with beheadings, uprisings, creepy sex dolls, and celebrity gossip-and its disastrously bad consequences throughout time
Spanning eras and cultures from ancient Rome to medieval England to 1950s Hollywood, Jennifer Wright’s It Ended Badlyguides you through the worst of the worst in historically bad breakups. In the throes of heartbreak, Emperor Nero had just about everyone he ever loved-from his old tutor to most of his friends-put to death. Oscar Wilde’s lover, whom he went to jail for, abandoned him when faced with being cut off financially from his wealthy family and wrote several self-serving books denying the entire affair. And poor volatile Caroline Lamb sent Lord Byron one hell of a torch letter and enclosed a bloody lock of her own pubic hair. Your obsessive social media stalking of your ex isn’t looking so bad now, is it?
With a wry wit and considerable empathy, Wright digs deep into the archives to bring these thirteen terrible breakups to life. She educates, entertains, and really puts your own bad breakup conduct into perspective. It Ended Badly is for anyone who’s ever loved and lost and maybe sent one too many ill-considered late-night emails to their ex, reminding us that no matter how badly we’ve behaved, no one is as bad as Henry VIII.
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