Tara's Reviews > 1776

It might be a mini miracle that I finished this book. I started it with my UTA book club back before my baby was born (She'll be one in a week and a half). I don't know if it was the pregnancy and newborn fatigue, the book itself, or what that caused me to fall asleep every time I started to listen. (Maybe it was that I was only finding time to listen late at night after the girls were asleep and the house was in order). But I did. And I stopped reading the book for a long time. My efforts were renewed, though, when I visited our Nation's Capitol. There is something really inspiring there, seeing the Washington Monument and thinking about our amazing founding fathers. Yet, I hit another road block. But I had some alone travel time the last few days (one day of which I was stuck in almost an hour of traffic on a barely crawling freeway). And I finished it. Yeah!

I've felt really bad about myself the whole time reading this. I was not enjoying the book, and I kept thinking, what kind of a person doesn't like 1776? Almost everyone likes it and it is OUR history for heavens sake and David McCullough is awesome and many other reasons. But I really had a hard time. The last two days, though, as I have listened to large chunks of it at a time, I finally got into it. Our country gaining it's independence is truly a miracle! 1776 was such a bad year, but it was also filled with hope by signing the Declaration of Independence (which was incredibly cool to see this past fall), by persevering leaders, by a surprising victory as the year came to a close, and by divine intervention which impacted these all. As I reached the end of the book, I marveled that we actually won our independence and I was so grateful for the amazing people who helped bring it to pass.