A 15 year-old's view on a history book

Last year, in 9th grade pre-IB American History, my teacher required his class to read this book. At first, we were all upset because we had just switched from pre-IB English with Romeo & Juliet, Odyssey, October Sky, and Hamlet. But, we soon found out that the book wasn't half as bad as Hamlet or Odyssey.

Ellis wrote in a way that would confuse anybody. In the first chapter one of the founding brothers is dead (Adams, I believe) but then in the second chapter he's eating dinner with the other three brothers. (C'mon, Ellis, couldn't you have at least used chronological order? You're slacking on us!)

The thing that my class, for the most part, really liked what that the author gave details of the men's personal lives; the book wasn't just straight facts. (Ask any 15 year old, facts are boring - we want the juicy details.) And Ellis seems to have a slight sense of humor that wants to come out because I noticed in several parts that he tried to make jokes about the med...or it could just be that I'm too young to really understand.)

The worst part about the book, for a high school student, somethings were hard to understand. Ellis used "old-time" phrases that confused me and he used very scholarly words - most of which I had to look up on m-w.com and then look up the meaning of the second word.

-Lillie