Blog? Want Free Books? Let's Chat.

poor historical fiction

by Anastacia Zittel

October 15, 2012

@anastaciaknits

I received a copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program, & it was unfortunately a disappointment from beginning to end.

I love historical fiction, though I mainly read European historical fiction. But I also like reading Civil War historical fiction, so I was eager to pick up this book. When I received it in the mail, I was disappointed to realize it was actually 3rd in a series, & I hate HATE picking up a book or a movie or heck, even a TV show, in the middle of the series. That being said, I agreed to review the book & so I began to read it. And was almost immediately turned off. The female characters in the book, from page one, are written so unrealistically, that I just could not get into the novel at all. The author's constant use of terms that are very 20th century instead of 19th century, bothered me to the point where I looked them up to see if I was wrong about their use (I wasn't wrong).

What was good about the book? It's very well written. I like the fact that Lacy chose to write a very clean book, no sex or swearing or even violence. The plot was interesting, as far as it went. I think this book would be great reading for a teen who wants to read about the Civil War.

Unfortunately, the things Lacy chose to ignore in his books made some scenes completely unrealistic. He could have written about the violence seen in war without spelling anything out, but to basically ignore it in a Civil War book is just unbelievable.