Review: Exciting!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 4, 2013
The Fourth Crusade is an action packed historical war adventure written by Mark Butler. Ruggiero is a young soldier who at ten years of age enters a monastery unwillingly but grows to accept it and becomes a priest. When the boy reaches the age of seventeen, the Pope decides to bring Christianity back to Jerusalem and decrees that every male over fifteen must fight the Muslims living there. Thus the Fourth Crusade begins and Riggiero sets off to war where he reunites with his younger brother and war hero father. He begins to question all he has known growing up including his idealized vision of who his father is and what war is all about. I really wasn't sure I would enjoy this book since even though I love historical novels I am not a lover of war books but I found myself loving every page of this one. The author weaves a story that doesn't only tell a tale about war but also about the relationship between a boy and his father and also the relationship with himself. He discovers that war isn't the glorified version he grew up believing it to be. The author brilliantly explores the conflict a man of God has as he is asked to kill others purely because of what they believe in.  Also explored is the father/son bond as Ruggiero yearns for his father's approval but finds he doesn't have as much in common with him as his little brother does. The character development is excellent and I truly cared about what happened to Ruggiero. The book also made me think about how some situations could be compared, in some capacity, to ones that happen today, especially the emotional ones. A definite must read!