She has fallen in love with young Prince Boris Drubetskoy, who lives with his mother Anna Mikhaylovna in the Rostov estate.

During Andrei's absence, Prince Anatole Kuragin takes advantage of the situation by courting Natasha, even though he is already married.

The character of Natasha Rostova is difficult to portray on film or television because she ages from a 13-year-old girl in book one to a 28-year-old mother of four at the end of the novel.

[3] Other performances include those of Morag Hood in the 1972 BBC miniseries with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre,[4] Ludmila Savelyeva in Sergei Bondarchuk's adaptation,[5] Clémence Poésy in the 2007 miniseries[6] and Denée Benton (Phillipa Soo Off-Broadway) in the New York musical adaptation, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which received 12 Tony nominations in 2017.

[9] The transformation of her character towards the end of the novel from a joyous, spirited 'waif-like' beauty into a plump, rather slatternly woman who is only interested in her husband and children has been criticized.

Dorothea Barrett compares this to the description of a matronly Dinah Morris at the end of Adam Bede, which she calls 'inappropriate, almost humiliating'.