Rise to Rebellion

Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

July 5, 2002

What I was really hoping this book would do, but what it failed to do, was to make the Founding Fathers seem like ordinary guys. Shaara details the problems John Adams and Ben Franklin have with their family lives, but I never really felt that I got to know them intimately. Washington was little-used, and all I seemed to learn about him was that he was tall and concerned about forming an army from a bunch of farmers. General Gage was one of the least interesting characters, it seemed from what I read that he really had little impact on the Revolution, which made me wonder why he was used so much. The book seems centered around Adams and Franklin, and maybe Shaara should have just concentrated on them, since the other perspectives seemed to add very little.

Perhaps Shaara bites off more than he can chew, covering the American colonies (and England) over a six-year span leaves a lot of ground to cover, making it harder to focus on specific events. So in the end, a lot of the events going on have to be summarized like a history textbook.

Overall, I thought Shaara's writing style was adequate, but nothing special. His narration didn't really bring out a lot of emotion in me. That's too bad, because as an American when I read a book about American heroes, I want to FEEL something.

To close, Rise to Rebellion provides an interesting perspective, but it didn't seem any better than the hundreds of books already in my public library on the Revolutionary War.