A review by mayanw31
Bull Run by Paul Fleischman

1.0

Okay, this is partly the fault of Paul Fleischman and partly the fault of my teacher. I had this book as a summer reading assignment and it reads like it's written for much younger readers. The characters have no personality, and are all annoying. And there are too many of them. I think the ones that annoyed me most were Shem Suggs not only because of his weird name, but because of his weird obsession with horses. I have a bestie who is obsessed with horses, and its not annoying at all. But this guy? Obsessed to the point of being unhealthy. Somebody pointed a gun at his horse and he "shot him without thinking". I half hoped his horse would die. I know, cold. But it was the author's fault for not developing the character enough so that I cared what happened to him and his stupid horse. (I know this may be surprising, but I actually do like horses quite a bit. I just wouldn't die for them.) Another annoying person always that naiëve eleven year old boy who wanted to fight and kill. Just another year, buddy, and you could volunteer for the Hunger Games!! Also, that cab driver's constant 'Tis a fact'ing was super annoying. I'm not sure what messages this books is trying to send, but people, in my own words, war is bad. Okay? It just is. And this book sucks. It was a wasted two hours. Why could I not have been assigned a better book? A classic, maybe, if it had to be educational. Then I could have added that classic to my repertoire. But this book sure ain't a classic, and it sure ain't going going on my repertoire.