The Barefoot Brigade

Rating:
Summary: A strangely uneven book
Review: This is the story of a group of men from Arkansas, particularly the brothers Noah and Zack, who end up fighting in Virginia during the Civil War. Jones has a hard time maintaining narrative tension -- there are moments when the reader notices something and then thinks "wait, when did that happen?", and the overall context of the characters' experiences is unclear, though that might be deliberate on the author's part. Through much of the text, drama is lacking somehow. On the other hand, during the last quarter or so of the text, the author seems to have been reinspired and produces some rather good writing as well as some dramatic action scenes. The end comes as a surprise and I'm not sure how I feel about it: without spoiling it, some major characters die, and while I don't object to that at all, I had a hard time with the fact that the one character left alive is one who was not well drawn and with whom it was never possible to empathize.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: Though not always the most advanced writing with complex literary concepts this was a good book. It had a alternative viewpoint to the always north viewed books on the Civil War. This book captures the true struggles and hardships of those who fought for the Confederacy and their reasons why.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: Though not always the most advanced writing with complex literary concepts this was a good book. It had a alternative viewpoint to the always north viewed books on the Civil War. This book captures the true struggles and hardships of those who fought for the Confederacy and their reasons why.