Reviews for Pilgrim

The average rating for Pilgrim based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-13 00:00:00 Angie Lance The author clearly knows his military history, which is how this book got a second star from me, but I really found it a slog to get through. The story just didn't grab me at all, I didn't care about any of the characters, the characterisation was minimal (I do not believe anybody in all of history ever spoke like these characters spoke, especially not young children) and I really didn't appreciate the anti-semitism and other racism (I wouldn't have had a problem with this if it had been voiced by the characters, as it would be true to the time period, but when it's in the actual narration I call foul). Still, I got a lot of tedious busy-work done while I was listening to it, so it's not all bad...

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-03 00:00:00 Scott Mcmurrain I had big expectations about this book. The plot seemed interesting, the language exquisite, my favourite time-line, yadda yadda, puuuurrfect. But seriously. Jackson has apparently never met a person under twenty years in his life, because his children talk like somebody with a Ph.D. in linguistics. All of them, all the time. I have a high respect for the author's vocabulary, it's magnificent, but it's magnificent for an epic poem or a discussion on Freud - not for a book in which the majority of characters are under ten. Even when the book is written for adult readers. The other thing was his portrayal of good versus evil. There are no gray shades in Pilgrim; people are either absolutely good or messengers of hell. The outcome is clear from the beginning, the good will prevail, the baddies will suffer, etc etc. But people are never like that, and they weren't like that a thousand years ago either, I'm sure. The thirst for chaos is a bad excuse for the main antagonist, and revenge often has no believable cause in the others. I stopped reading after a third of the book and just skipped to the end to see what happened - there was an unexpected twist which I liked and that's what the second star is for, but everything else was predictable. If this book was rewritten with characters with more depth and children who did not make lengthy speeches at all times instead of talking like human beings talk, then it could be a remarkable book, but alas, it is not. I admire the way Jackson spins his words and plays with the English language, but Pilgrim is not the right place for that kind of language - let children talk like children, or at least like average adults, and let adults talk like average adults, too.