The author is not the articulate type and even admitted in his book that he hates writing. I'm sure there was a ghost writer or a zealous editor has put a lot of work into turning the author's raw notes into this book. There are some chapters that skirt the edge of good writing, but most of it is simply a play-by-play account of what happened. I can't imagine what it would have been like without the ghost writer however in any case, this completely doesn't matter because the account itself is so compelling. But still that thing has somehow been shielded by the splendid level of the story.
This is awesome. The reader can absorb the historically correct information in the form of a story. Unfortunately, for me, I figured this out in the very beginning of the story, so I was on the lookout for the rest of the book, and only paying attention to the fact.
The way that Michael Shaara has written this novel shows how truly wonderful he was as an entertaining writer. There was one thing that I did not like about it and that was the pace. I would have liked if the author would have written before the date of June 29th, and explained a little more of what was happening. Another little critique I would make would be to not drag on the days so intensely.
When I first started reading it, I thought that it was going to be really boring because it was about history. But as I got further along in the book, I realized that it was not just a typical history book. Michael Shaara had written the book in a way so that it was easy for us to experience the American Civil War with the soldiers on the field. The different sections of the book were written so that it was from each individual’s point of view, which I found quite interesting. Michael Shaara approached this book in a different manner and I think it really did the book some justice.
Overall I would give the book 3 out of five stars because I didn’t really like the book because it was very slow paced throughout the entire book with a lot of filler chapters that didn’t contribute to the plot of the
The plot, the setting, the characters were all wonderful, but the three things that caught my attention were the accuracy of events, heart-racing events, and the plot. Throughout the book, events during the jail or courthouse were described very detailed and produced a clear image in my head. The author must have done lots of prior research in order to get information about these events that most commoners do not know. The fire, rape, fights were described in a manner that allowed me to truly experience and understand what it was like in the character’s shoes. The plot went through many situations from jail cells all the way to getting confidential information from the Pentagon.
It has its faults, but overall it was a book I would recommend to tell the story of this horrific forest fire. I was not satisfied with the character in the account; they did not have enough character background to make the reader really feel for them. The characters did not connect to the reader on an emotional level I believe. For example Roosevelt and Taft are extremely narrowed mined and bland to me. He Force themes on to the reader much to frequently as well.
The book truly keeps you hardwired in, making you focus on what is going to happen next. Moreover, the writer of the book displays a wonderful mapping to further explain where and how things happen. He does this by giving both sides of the story from the North and the South. The writer also broke down the story telling into four days.
This novel was very interesting because the plot and climax were well written and the author well expressed the feeling of the main character. The author described the setting well and could picture he was trying to get out. The
My only complaint in terms of style was that the structure was not particularly well-considered. McCrea jumped about frequently in time and space, often from paragraph to paragraph, in a distracting manner. The chapters that worked best were those in which the author stuck to one time period or event. The formatting of the book is excellent, with a nice layout and several photographs at the halfway point which help the reader to visualise the context. I spotted two errors in punctuation: a misplaced apostrophe and a missing comma.
The criticisms of being overly descriptive to no point and shallow story telling often come up in critic reviews of the book. In my opinion Powers does a great job in setting the scene and as veteran myself he could not have done a better job with this novel. It is nearly impossible to explain
Overall the book is fairly slow, slightly good plot, and several underdeveloped
It was slightly confusing at times, and the plot would be somewhat boring at times. Most of the characters were developed well, but some characters were confusing and seemed all over the place. The conflict, however, was very true to life, as elephant poachers do exist, and it’s apparent that the author did her research. The ending was quite bittersweet, as Date Bed had died by the time the family found her, and makes the reader unsure whether the elephants did end up making it to the Safe Place after all. There is also a lot of in-depth analysis required to fully understand the book, else the reader may get quite lost in the plot.
This Is why I rate this book a 7 out of 10. Overall this book was very informing and interesting and I would gladly read it again some time in the
I do think some improvements here and there could really make the book better. The writing is marvelous, much like Neal’s other books, but the plot seemed under-developed and disjointed. It’s as if he wrote an a thousand page book, then cut all the important, thought provoking pages out; leaving the book to be good, but choppy. Overall, I’m really glad I read this book, and I think others should as
