LitPick Review
Best friends Will and Bobby have always dreamed of escaping from the orphanage to join the 14th Regiment. One day, the opportunity presents itself and they take it. On their adventure, they meet many people including Dinky Dolan, the devious merchant, and Daniel, a young African American teenager who is wise beyond his years. A story of survival, war, and adventure, 'Joining Up' will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Opinion:
I did not enjoy reading 'Joining Up'. The storyline was very sporadic and it was very hard to follow. There were also many punctuation and grammatical errors that were difficult to ignore. The author wasn't very good at bringing harmony into the story and I just did not like it!
"Throughout the novel I use 18th century Irish type colloquialisms and intentional misspelled words throughout the dialgue to make it seem as though it was written in the Civil War time period." Mr. McGuire pointed out to us that many adults have reviewed his book and have enjoyed it very much. We have included some of their comments below and encourage anyone interested in reading JOINING UP to read these comments in their entirety on Amazon.com. We have also asked Mr. McGuire to provide us with another review copy of JOINING UP so we can have it reviewed by another one of our young adult reviewers. After reading what adult reviewers have said about JOINING UP, it seems like a very interesting book but probably for older young adults.
Two teenage boys, backs still raw from a whipping, make their escape from a Brooklyn Orphanage to join Brooklyn's famous Red Legged Devils of the Fourteenth Regiment.. En- route to the Civil War battlefields Bobby and Will become mule train drivers with a scalawag muleskinner who runs supply wagons for a Massachusetts Regiment. The search for the Fourteenth New York leads the runaways to the farmlands of Pennsylvania where Robert E Lee is about to launch his armies of Northern Virginia against George Meade's Union Army of the Potomac. It's the eve of the biggest battle of the Civil War when the runaways finally don Union Blue.
"In time for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War Jack McGuire offers Joining Up (Self-Published, 2011), a new historical novel memorializing Brooklyns famous red-legged devils of the Fourteenth Regiment through fiction. The book offers readers insight into the abolitionist regiment that became a favorite of Abraham Lincoln."
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"McGuire artfully synthesizes the various factions of American society to portray life during the Civil War, adding a human element to the events of our nation's history. Joining Up is the ideal book for anyone who enjoys history, an adventure, or a well-told story, providing readers with the riveting account of Bobby, Will, and Andrew as they fight for justice. "
5 star review from Amazon.com
"JOINING UP is also a treatment of the reality of war. The battle scenes as described draw the reader into the fury of each event. My mind would mentally twitch at the pains endured by the combatants on both sides of the battle. A wound in the Civil War meant eventual if not immediate death for ninety-nine per cent those injured. Man's brutality to man can only be viewed with wonder and a sense of the insanity and hatred that each side possessed. Another thread within the story is how we all search out to reconnect with biological family and will accept substitute "family" wherever and whenever it can be found when our hunger for it is great enough. Skin-color, national-origin nor anything else will stand in the way of our basic human need to belong.
In closing, I wish to thank John Jack McGuire for an insightful look into the human condition, warts and all. Thanks also for showing the undying human spirit, fighting to survive, hoping to thrive, which is available to all who choose to seek it out. "
5 star review from Amazon.com
"This is a great book for young people but good reading for anyone interested in the Civil War."
5 star review from Amazon.com
