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Dangerous Days in the Roman Empire: Terrors and Torments, Diseases and Deaths by Terry Deary
eimearz's review
Less concerned with history and more with juvenile entertainment. The tone is tactless and sensationalistic.
tri_lo_bite's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
2.0
This book is like if someone took one of the horrible histories books- which are great for kids- took out all the pictures, added talk about sex and incest, started to use some 100 dollar words, and did nothing else. I’ve never read a book that is so confusing in regard to what age it’s meant for!
Originally I picked it up, read the first couple pages, and decided I’d read it aloud to my preteen siblings before our upcoming trip to Italy. The humor and writing is perfect for a thirteen year old boy! And then a couple chapters in, I started to get quite uncomfortable when talking about genital mutilation, incest, child molestation and other definitely not appropriate to be read aloud things. And explaining some of the harder words became exhausting. My fault? Yeah probably. But the writing style is so young I didn’t expect that level of clarity when it came to just how debouched the Romans were.
So all in all, this is a very mediocre history book focusing on the Roman emperors. And pretty much just the Roman emperors. It has quotes scattered throughout that area from various famous people (mostly British) throughout history that have pretty much no context to the meat of the book. The writing is immature and disrespectful. Mildly sexist, and tone deaf. It feels as though we aren’t talking about real people who were actually really tortured and killed. But I guess maybe it is Roman to get pleasure from the pain of others.
mothwing's review
3.0
Things did get too list-like in the later years, but that was only to be expected, given the sheer number of Roman Emperors. Still, this is part of the problem - there's much more to Roman history than emperors, and leaving a few of those out to focus on ANY other aspect than the wacky rulers would have made this much more interesting.
lileuw's review
3.0
This is a really funny book, just like the Horrible Histories series. This book really is like the grownup version of the series.
It’s divided by reigning emperor and it tells what that person did, how they became emperor and how they died. It is a lot more in depth than any other history book I usually read and it’s NOT boring, which is a HUGE plus! That’s what I love about Terry Deary, his book are hilarious and make you want to read more.
Though, this one wasn’t my favourite of the bunch. I mean, it’s interesting, it’s funny, but I just wasn’t interested enough in it to truly love it. I really learned something from it, which is a plus because that’s what you want when you read non-fiction, but I just wasn’t invested in it. I really want to say more about this book, but I don’t feel like there is much else to say, it’s a non-fiction, hilarious, knowledgeable, uncommon with it’s information and just plain Terry Deary, it’s just a shame I’m not into the era!
Do I recommend this book if you ARE interested in the Roman era? Totally! Do I recommend it if you AREN’T interested in the Roman era? Still totally!
It’s divided by reigning emperor and it tells what that person did, how they became emperor and how they died. It is a lot more in depth than any other history book I usually read and it’s NOT boring, which is a HUGE plus! That’s what I love about Terry Deary, his book are hilarious and make you want to read more.
Though, this one wasn’t my favourite of the bunch. I mean, it’s interesting, it’s funny, but I just wasn’t interested enough in it to truly love it. I really learned something from it, which is a plus because that’s what you want when you read non-fiction, but I just wasn’t invested in it. I really want to say more about this book, but I don’t feel like there is much else to say, it’s a non-fiction, hilarious, knowledgeable, uncommon with it’s information and just plain Terry Deary, it’s just a shame I’m not into the era!
Do I recommend this book if you ARE interested in the Roman era? Totally! Do I recommend it if you AREN’T interested in the Roman era? Still totally!
lucyp21's review
4.0
This book is from the author of the Horrible History books which I had loved so much and this book is one of the books for adults that focuses on the more gruesome parts of history.
I did enjoy this book, it went through the different emperors that ruled over Rome and the good, bad and the mad things they did, however, I felt like it was missing a certain lightheartedness and humour that I so enjoyed in the Horrible History books. It was a good overview of the more gruesome bits of the Roman Empire and covered why it failed in the end, and I found it interesting, but it was just missing something for me.
4 stars!
I did enjoy this book, it went through the different emperors that ruled over Rome and the good, bad and the mad things they did, however, I felt like it was missing a certain lightheartedness and humour that I so enjoyed in the Horrible History books. It was a good overview of the more gruesome bits of the Roman Empire and covered why it failed in the end, and I found it interesting, but it was just missing something for me.
4 stars!
calli's review
3.0
I found it quite interesting, but the jokes and modern comparisons and quotes got boring quite quickly.