Review: Interesting Plot, shallow emotions
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2014
There were many positives as well as negatives about this book.Positives:1) The story's plot was interesting. You wanted to know what was going to happen. Really wanted to know.2) The fight scenes were engaging and descriptive, unlike some books I could mention... it seemed to describe real action.3) The historical blended well with the fictional aspect and made things intriguing. I felt like I learned things I didn't know before about that section of the war.4) It was nice to have Christian values and concepts brought into a novel.Negatives:1) The plot felt forced in quite a few areas. Why did Dane make a troublemaker Russian stay with them. There was no "have to" here.. it felt like it was contrived to give tension to the book, not like it was something that could be avoided.2) While the actions were realistic, the emotional aspect was shallow. It felt like all the characters said and did what the author wanted them to.... like they were puppets on a string being jerked around this way and that for the story's sake... like it wasn't really them, just emotions pasted onto cardboard figures. It felt fake, fake, fake.3) I really didn't care for the amount of lust and leering and graphic descriptions of the russian mistreating the main girl character. I felt like that was thrown in for ... modernity's sake? It would have been better without all that... or only 5% of it.4) While I appreciated the Christian concepts discussed and the gospel presentation, this also felt like it was slapped on and shallow. Don't get me wrong, I am a Christian and hold dearly to my beliefs, but this came across like the author thought "Oh, right, need to make them believe certain ways by the end of the story".... slap on shallow corny conversation .... I felt like ... the "converts" fell for everything too quickly and did "what they were supposed to" without seeing a deep change... just switching out the "unsaved" for "saved" sign hanging around their neck.  And it was a little much to have us see the Russian in hell, screaming for all of eternity.....So, to sum it up, the plot is interesting and informative, but the character's are shallow - emotionally and spiritually. This could be a really good book - after it was edited and tightened up a couple notches.