A review by zhelana
All Other Nights by Dara Horn

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I'm not sure what I thought of this book. I mean, when I read a book I like to like the narrator or main character in the book. And Jacob Rappaport was actually just an awful person. Not a redeemably flawed person, but an actually awful person. After the first bit at his uncle's house, I didn't really care what happened to him or thought "serves you right" when bad things happened. And I don't like feeling like that. I want to empathize with a narrator. Since I didn't really care what happened to any of the specific characters and I knew how the civil war would end, it was hard to care about this book. I couldn't even really figure out what was motivating this character. Like, he joined the army because he had to escape his parents, not because he wanted to, but then after that it seems like he's motivated by devotion to the Union cause, but that can't be because he didn't want to be in the army in the first place. And it just seems like... what is this guy doing? Why is he doing it? It was such a random story. I think it was an attempt at a redemption story, but it didn't really work and I didn't feel that the character was redeemed at the end. I'm not sure really what to make of it overall. 2.5 stars.