Genre: Military Fiction/War
Published: May 9, 2014
Pages: 194
Ages: 16+
Synopsis
Jihad arrives on American shores. The President lacks the courage to effectively confront the terrorists and would rather negotiate and capitulate than fight. The court system allows Muslim extremists, represented by the ACLU, to use our own constitutional rights to tighten the noose around America's neck. It becomes clear that a Muslim victory is almost certain unless Americans are freed of a federal government that refuses to protect them and a court system that aids and abets the enemy. When the U.S. military is unsuccessful in convincing the president to change course and engage the enemy in a state of war, the patient American people face the most fundamental question every country must answer at some moment its history - What are we willing to do to save our beloved homeland? After much heart-wrenching discussion and debate, Americans finally decide. They must . . . REVOLT!
Review
I received this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program in the hopes that I would leave an honest review.
I saw a post a while back that basically says a reviewer should never mention their personal politics or religion in their reviews, especially if they differ from the ideas portrayed in the book, but sometimes I think those things can significantly impact a reviewers reading experience and to not address them would be more unfair. With that in mind, I would like to begin this review by informing y'all that I lean pretty far to the left politically. I feel this is important information because my very first thought about Revolt! was, "This sounds like a conservative conspiracy theory." So basically I hated large portions of this story simply because of my political leanings. While I am attempting to not let that affect my rating unduly, I can't guarantee that I've been 100% successful.
So the basic gist of this book is that the US's War on Terror has failed and jihadists have invaded our shores in an attempt for total world domination, something they are incredibly close to achieving in the year 2018. The book does an outstanding job of maintaining a bigoted right-wing we've-never-done-anything-wrong mindset (and no, I don't think all right-wingers are bigoted or have that mindset, but it is very prevalent in the main characters of this story.) There was one line that had me raging at the near-sightedness of the character. After a mall had been bombed resulting in many casualties, the main character asks, "Why would these Muslims want to kill all these innocent human beings...these babies? Why? What did we ever do to them?" (I found myself answering him with "Well, we only killed millions of their women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that's no big deal right?") But in spite of all the areas in this book that had me raging at the characters mindset, Revolt! succeeded in making me hate the Muslims in the story.
I did have some issues with the structure of the story itself. One of those issues is that the book seemed to have a rather simplistic view on the war and Muslim world domination. I find it impossible to believe that the Muslims went from using whatever garbage they could find to make IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan to doing the things they've done in Revolt! (and no I'm not telling you what those things are because spoilers) in just 4 years. Also, the world domination itself. There's a lot of world to conquer, and to do it in such a short time would hinge on an almost complete lack of resistance from the rest of the world.
My other issue is that there were far too many spelling and grammar errors for a book this size. The average reader probably wouldn't notice or be bothered by them, but a stickler like me definitely will.
Overall I give Revolt! 3 out of 5 stars because it definitely made me think about the possibility of Muslim world domination, but it seemed too simplistic and had too many structural errors. - Katie
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About the Author
I was raised in a 4 room house near the steel mill where my dad worked; excelled at sports and fighting; got to college on a swimming scholarship; dropped out of college after 1st year (due to boredom) and went to Europe and somehow survived alone for a year; somehow graduated and was immediately sent to Air Force Pilot Training to get ready to kill Vietnamese; George W. was in training with me; suffered severe injuries and spent six months in a military hospital; expected to die but disappointed the doctors; medical discharge as a disabled veteran; got M.Ed. and taught elementary school while going to evening law school; became a trial lawyer; decided to get into an honest profession and became a law professor; interspersed among these years I managed to be: a father of 6 boys (one deceased) and 3 girls and grandfather to 9 (# is still growing); a radio talk show host; a regular on a morning TV show, a candidate for US Congress ... lost but got to meet President Reagan in the White House so it was worth the effort; a stage actor and director; a member of a performing tap dancing troupe; an oldies singer; a bit part actor in the motion picture industry; a Field Investigator for the Mutual UFO Network and writer of a book on orange orbs (type of UFO)
At present, I am trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up. It will come to me one of these days.
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