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thomcat's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the first book for the story, I enjoyed this book for the history. Oh, and it's "Kingdom" not "Kindgom"...
libkatem's review against another edition
4.0
Picking up where the first one left off, this chronicles Octavian's life from 1775-1776, where he makes new friends and reacquaints himself with older ones. And endeavours to define and fight for his own Liberty.
Basically my heart broke in several more places. I want justice and liberty for all, not just white male landowners. It's no wonder Octavian sides with the British after seeing the hypocrisies of our "founding fathers," and yet, the Brits screw the former slaves over just as much.
Just... read them, okay?
Basically my heart broke in several more places. I want justice and liberty for all, not just white male landowners. It's no wonder Octavian sides with the British after seeing the hypocrisies of our "founding fathers," and yet, the Brits screw the former slaves over just as much.
Just... read them, okay?
aprilbosworth's review against another edition
4.0
Super interesting, especially since I happened to have visited the Fort where Dunmore holed up in Norfolk this past summer. I don't know if I even knew he had raised an "Ethiopian" army by promising freedom to slaves of "rebels."
I kept wanting a happy ending, but found the ending as it was acceptably satisfying.
The journal format, voice, and perspective are well executed. Many different complexities of slavery play out in the novel. I feel like I understand more for having read it.
As would not be unexpected with the setting and subject matter, there is some violence and cruelty. Both are related quite in the same matter of fact tone as the rest of the events, which in some cases actually serves to underscore the inhumanity of the slave and soldier experiences.
I kept wanting a happy ending, but found the ending as it was acceptably satisfying.
The journal format, voice, and perspective are well executed. Many different complexities of slavery play out in the novel. I feel like I understand more for having read it.
As would not be unexpected with the setting and subject matter, there is some violence and cruelty. Both are related quite in the same matter of fact tone as the rest of the events, which in some cases actually serves to underscore the inhumanity of the slave and soldier experiences.
rachelm524's review against another edition
5.0
I truly enjoyed this book. I found it captivating and fascinating. I had borrowed it from a friend and then picked it up off paperback swap so I can have it for my kids.
jessalynn_librarian's review against another edition
5.0
The action of Volume I: The Pox Party is summed up neatly in a broadside, allowing the plot of Volume II to stand on its own. The emotional content of this book, though, is probably better understood in light of the first book, but there's enough going on here to completely occupy the reader.
Octavian, as a character, is a fascinating outsider in the world he occupies. He has the education of a well-to-do white man, he was raised as an object of scientific inquiry, but he also witnessed his mother's horrific death and suffered his own indignities at the hands of Mr. Gitney and Mr. Sharpe. In some ways he is mature beyond his years, but he can't bring himself to speak to a girl he admires. He is seen as a slave by most white men, both Royalist and revolutionary. He is seen as a pampered boy by many of his fellow former slaves in Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian regiment. At times he brings a sense of history and philosophy to his situation, and at other times he is overcome by the world around him.
Not only is Octavian a fascinating character, but so are others around him. It's an overwhelming example of historical fiction - overwhelming because it does not seem to impose our present day understanding on historical figures, but instead shows them as they were understood at the time. Both sides care only for the slaves in as far as they can further their cause. Nothing is glamorized or glorified. The language is amazing - and was the source, along with the character of Pro Bono, of a lot of the humor of the book. "I don't cut so excellent a figure when I'm vomiting," says Bono (or Private William Williams, as he is now known). "I bend from the waist, and it interrupts the line of beauty."
At times the book is a delight to read - and at other times an agony. There's action, and introspection, and views on the story from plenty of characters. We read Octavian's testimony, his diary, letters between various characters, and the occasional document from real historical sources. "Sweet mercy in a firkin," as Bono would say, this is a book worth reading. My own words can't do it justice.
While it's not an easy read, teens interested in realistic historical fiction or classics would find this a pleasant challenge. It is, at heart, an unusual coming of age story, concerned with an aspect of history that isn't covered enough in school.
Octavian, as a character, is a fascinating outsider in the world he occupies. He has the education of a well-to-do white man, he was raised as an object of scientific inquiry, but he also witnessed his mother's horrific death and suffered his own indignities at the hands of Mr. Gitney and Mr. Sharpe. In some ways he is mature beyond his years, but he can't bring himself to speak to a girl he admires. He is seen as a slave by most white men, both Royalist and revolutionary. He is seen as a pampered boy by many of his fellow former slaves in Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian regiment. At times he brings a sense of history and philosophy to his situation, and at other times he is overcome by the world around him.
Not only is Octavian a fascinating character, but so are others around him. It's an overwhelming example of historical fiction - overwhelming because it does not seem to impose our present day understanding on historical figures, but instead shows them as they were understood at the time. Both sides care only for the slaves in as far as they can further their cause. Nothing is glamorized or glorified. The language is amazing - and was the source, along with the character of Pro Bono, of a lot of the humor of the book. "I don't cut so excellent a figure when I'm vomiting," says Bono (or Private William Williams, as he is now known). "I bend from the waist, and it interrupts the line of beauty."
At times the book is a delight to read - and at other times an agony. There's action, and introspection, and views on the story from plenty of characters. We read Octavian's testimony, his diary, letters between various characters, and the occasional document from real historical sources. "Sweet mercy in a firkin," as Bono would say, this is a book worth reading. My own words can't do it justice.
While it's not an easy read, teens interested in realistic historical fiction or classics would find this a pleasant challenge. It is, at heart, an unusual coming of age story, concerned with an aspect of history that isn't covered enough in school.
renatasnacks's review against another edition
5.0
Octavian is such an incredible narrator, and I truly respect MT Anderson's eye for historical detail and sharp attention to systemic oppression. These books are just so, so cutting. The conceit and language are a little hard to get into but once you're in it.......dangg.
nerfherder86's review against another edition
4.0
This sequel to "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, The Pox Party' (fie on longwinded titles!) is much more readable than the first book. The language is still very 'period', so that you feel like you are reading something written by a real person from 1776, but you'll need a dictionary handy. Our hardy hero Octavian has escaped from the college of scientists who had raised him as an experiment in social nature, and he's now joined up with other freed slaves in the king's army's "Ethiopian Regiment"--because Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, decreed that any rebel slave who left his master would find freedom with the British if he joined the army. Not exactly a great deal: Octavian is starving and shut up on a smelly ship full of smallpox victims. And there's no guarantee that he'll truly be free once the fighting is over. But they do occasionally venture out to fight the Patriots, and all the while we get Octavian's philosophical musings on life and liberty and equality. It's a good historical action story but it's interrupted a lot by longwinded speeches by Octavian's tutor, and by Octavian himself as he writes about the classical stories he's studied. A very long book that could have been more interesting if it weren't so long. For another look at how slaves were treated by the British and the Patriots at the same time, read Laurie Halse Anderson's excellent [book: Chains].
lolaleviathan's review against another edition
5.0
The first book was good, the second book was EPIC. Anderson really hit his stride here. It's a fabulous bildungsroman, a sobering history lesson, a rollicking military adventure, a philosophical treatise, all written in gorgeously lyrical, historically evocative prose, full of fleshy characters I came to love. I laughed, I cried, I learned about the betrayal of black people in the colonies by both the rebels and the Loyalists, I thought about liberty and violence and the meaning of life. What a great read.
breenakm's review against another edition
3.0
For some odd reason I can not think of a single time when I imagined what it would be like to be on the losing side of the war as a slave. Fighting for your freedom...different than the majority of us who take it for granted.