I was definitely intrigued by the premise of this books and it’s general concept - the growth and evolution of four American children into teens and adulthood throughout the tumultuous years in the past 60-70 years of American history. Unfortunately it was hard for me to engage with the book, between the characters and the pacing at the beginning, I couldn’t seem to focus my attention.

Historical fiction is my favorite genre and I was excited to receive this book as an arc. I really tried to read this book but I really struggled to get into this book due to the style of the writing. After picking this book up several times I found that I could read a little bit at time before losing focus completely and putting it down again. Unfortunately I decided this book just wasn’t for me and had to give up and place it in my did not finish pile.

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

To be honest, I had a hard time getting through this book. I stuck with it because the characters of Mick and Troy were interesting, but I found the writing style a little bit too stream of consciousness for my taste--it felt more like a listing of events than a cohesive story. I also didn’t find the female characters to be particularly believable or compelling. The characters of Troy and Mick were well-drawn, though.

I received an ARC Kindle edition of this book from NetGalley.

Normally, I do not put descriptions of the book in my reviews, but since it is not yet showing on Goodreads, here it is from NetGalley's website:

Description

Four young people come of age in the 1960s, a decade that shook America to its foundation – the assassination of an idealistic young president, a tragic and unpopular war, a battle for civil rights, a cosmic clash of riots and burning cities, and an explosion of sex, drugs and rock’n roll.

Celebrated author Mike Bond’s AMERICA is the first in his seven-volume historical novel series of the lives of these four people and many others through the victories and heartbreaks of the last 70 years, and of our nation’s most profound upheavals since the Civil War – a time that defined the end of the 20th Century and where we are today.

Trigger Warnings: pedophilia involving a priest, descriptions of hunting deer, abortion

Prior to starting this book, I had read that this was to be the first of a series of seven books. I was excited to start this because I like historical fictions and learning tidbits about times I was not around for. Maybe I set my expectations too high.

At the 48% mark I found myself wondering what the point of this story is. Now that I am finished here is what I took away:

Mike: can be smart when he wants to be, prefers to be outdoors and reckless, and his existence revolves around sex

Troy: the exceptionally intelligent, disciplined military man

Tara: is (almost) Jenny from Forrest Gump (Before anyone asks, no. Not Jenny from the Block)

Daisy: abused as a child, running from her past life or being selfless and helping the world? You decide.

The majority of the book (in my estimation) centers around Mick and it's not at all interesting unless you like to read about sexcapade after sexcapade. With the little story (compared to Mick) we get about Tara and Daisy, they too are reduced to acts of sex that rarely adds to the story.

Since I still fail to see the point or take away of this book, I have an honest question. Do these four characters truly define coming of age in the '60s?

There is an excerpt for the next book of the series. It appears to pick up where this one leaves off. It appears to pick up where this one leaves off. I'm not entirely sure I am going to continue on.

I received an advance reading copy of this book from NetGalley.com in return for a fair review. This book is the first in a nine-book series. I looked forward to reading it as the description indicated that the story is about America beginning in the late 1950s through the present. As a child of the fifties who grew up in the sixties and seventies, I was intrigued. For me, however, the story falls short. Author Bond introduces us to Mick, the son of a struggling Iowa farmer, and Troy, an orphan who is being raised in a Catholic home run by questionable priests. When the two boys meet, they decide to take off on a great adventure. The story seemed to ramble on and on with neither character being very likable. As they grow up and Troy and is adopted by Mick's family, their lives intertwine, but like most brothers, they don't always get along. Both are smart, but one is not interested in a formal education. The most sympathetic characters were Mick's parents. They worked hard to keep their farm, but eventually lost it when they just couldn't make ends meet. This first volume ends with the Viet Nam war heating up and one brother who is against it and the other brother who wants to fight there. There is also a sister who happens to sing the blues--another character that was hard to like. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the characters and their lack of direction. Maybe another reviewer might feel differently.

Four children grow up together in upstate New York through the 50’s and 60’s. Mick is intelligent yet resists authority in all forms, especially academic, and tests his endurance in dangerous challenges. Tara, his sister, rejects her roots and seeks solace first in her adopted brother, Troy, and then music. Troy, finding his second family by running away from an abusive boys’ home, tries hard to be accepted. He feels safest in a structured setting, following rules. Daisy, their childhood friend, lives with an abusive father and is forced to move away from all that is familiar. Volunteering for Mississippi voter registration, she witnesses firsthand the horrors of racism and then joins the Peace Corps in Africa. Their lives share a background of three presidential terms, campus and civil rights demonstrations and an escalating war. Mike Bond’s characters throughout this American history novel spend a great amount of time in rumination and introspection over the meaning of life, the commitment to love and the definition of freedom, at times too much for this reader.

I grew up during the era America is set in so I thought it would be like a nostalgia trip for me. It was the little things that seemed off. This may seem petty, but in the 1950's all the book's girls had hair so long that it brushed the arms of the boyfriends'. Look at high school year books or old movies and TV shows of the time. Women had these weird short hairdos that looked like a series of lumps and bumps all over their heads. Even a beauty like teenage Elizabeth Taylor had the lumpy short hair look. Ugliest hairdo in history. Maybe that's why Bond switched it for long hair. After that came super teased up hair with little flips at the ends and a tiny black velveteen bow propped between the bangs and the tease. Second ugliest hairdo of all time.

But, I digress. Although I had piddly arguments with hair and clothes (oh, and with sexual activity. Teenage girls whip their white panties off right and left for every boy they see in this novel. I know there was a sexual revolution but it came later than the 1950's and early sixties. Girls were still super concerned with reputations and virginity in 1964 when this book more or less ends. High school kids gossiped nastily about anyone they considered a "bad girl." Oh, and nobody catches an STD in America even though a few characters have sex with 4 different people a day. No mention of gigantic shots of penicillin, one in each hip. Ouch!)

But, I digress again. My main argument is that much of the book is a info dump. That is that the entire American history from civil rights to Vietnam to women's rights to hazardous workplace conditions to urbanization to the Peace Corps to the Beatles, folk music and the Blues to...well, you get the idea, is crammed into a book a little over 300 pages. Much is the information is given through bickering arguments. I kind of got tired of the bickering and the massive info dumping. I know a lot was going on during that time but that was a hell of a lot to squish into an average-sized novel.

It was an okay story though. If you lived through this time you might remember things differently.

The times they are a changing ....
The time, the late 1950’s
The place, a small Northeastern farming community
The family, the O’Brien’s
With the 60’s on the not too distant horizon, this is a cultural saga of politics (Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Vietnam). freedoms (marriage, love sex) and coming of age in a time of self-exploration.
I enjoyed the development of the characters and the time period in which I watched them and America evolve. In the first half of this journey, I was fully engaged in the storyline but somewhere along the way, I was unable to connect.
With fairness to the author and other readers, I may have been expecting something different. ‘America’ is book one in a seven volume series and perhaps the connection and involvement that I lost will be found in subsequent volumes..
Thanks to NetGalley and Big City Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

I love historical fiction and was thrilled to receive a copy of this arc. The prologue confirmed that this book was right up my alley, but by the end of chapter one I was scratching my head. I struggled with the dialect and it all just seemed forced. I’m sad to say that I didn’t make it past chapter four. I very rarely give up on a book, but I couldn’t trudge through this one as the story simply didn’t capture my attention.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

For the first 45% of America I was shocked. I was expecting the book to be boring and dry. Instead, I was treated with a melodramatic slice of life tale that was seriously engaging. I honestly couldn't put it down and wanted to know what was gonna happen next. It wasn't high art but it was still really enjoyable. Unfortunately, my initial expectations took up the remaining 55% of the novel.

Around the halfway point out kids have grown into teenagers and immediately become insufferable, philosophical know-it-alls. The argument could be made that this is your run of the mill kid but that doesn't make it any less obnoxious. It's also around this time that the historical fiction aspect truly takes hold; unfortunately for the worst.

What we're left with are characters moving from point A to point B, discussing whatever current bullet point topic we're given by the author, they complain about the injustices of the world, have sex and move on. Wash rinse repeat. It began to feel like Mike Bond just really wanted to write non-fiction but didn't know how to thoroughly tie it all together. He clearly knows his stuff and wants you to know just how much he knows. Let your characters naturally come to these conclusions instead of forcing your own beliefs down theirs and our throats.

Speaking of sex, it became laughable just how often characters were talking about it or engaging in the act. I'm in no way a prude but when your historical fiction novel randomly becomes softcore porn, all involving teenagers, it's extremely odd and distracting to what the tone is supposed to be.

I'm extremely conflicted on whether or not I'll continue this series, which is supposed to be 7 parts. If the book bad continued as it did early on, my answer would have been an absolute yes. As of right now, I shrug and say maybe. Who knows.

Thanks to Big City Press and NetGalley for the chance to read an advanced copy of this novel.

The 1960s. America. So much happened in this decade. So much that deeply impacted this nation and its people.

America is a spell-binding story of three young people who meet in the 1950s and disconnect and reconnect in the 60s. The author touches on many of the themes of the decade but majors on the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the sexual revolution.

The characters are well developed and the story is enthralling. I recommend this book.

*Warning--explicit sexual content.

Free ARC from NET GALLEY

& part series, but this was not my same old Bond.

I like "thriller-Bond" much more, this was just okay.

Mike Bond has the most beautiful prose I have ever read. I received an ARC through Netgalley, and I dropped everything else to read it. The first of this series covers the time from 50s to 60s. I lived through that time, up to the beginning of the war. Each of the major characters went through many experiences I had. I was as Troy, I supported the Government through the times of the Viet Nam war. Today I am ashamed to admit I was very wrong. The style of writing is very elegant and the book reflects the ideas of our times. Maybe our knowledge today can help new readers learn how the government can lead others to kill and be killed. The author does not tell how others should think, but the beautiful story will help others to think. Each new book from Mike Bond seems to become better.

This book starts out in 1940s with a young boy that has run away from an orphanage where he was abused. He encounters another boy his age that has great caring parents. These parents take this boy in as a part of the family. This hard working farm family struggles financially during the bad economy of the time. The book continues as the 3 siblings go on their separate paths during the turbulent sixties while still keeping in touch with each other.

This book was a little slow to get into. The book is very detailed and really takes you through the ups and downs of the different generations. It is interesting.

Quite well written and trying to cover quite a wide range of viewpoints as the characters develop from pre teens to young adults being shaped by the larger events around them. The tale often jumps from character to character as they follow their different paths and sometimes seems to wander off into a fairly meaningless diversion but overall an interesting read and would be interested to see if the next volume in this series continues in the same vein or starts to pull things together a bit more coherently.

This novel is a saga that reminded me of a John Jakes series. The characters are compelling and I love how we follow them through growing up in the 1960s and see how they react to and are affected by all of the major historical events of their time. I can’t wait to read the second book in the series.

America was the book I needed to read in high school to really understand American History. Mike Bond wrote characters that you instantly fall in love with and desperately need to know what happens next. Bond made events in American history interesting and wrote about them so well you felt like you were there yourself.
You follow the 4 main characters from young kids, around 10 into college. You learn how each family and each personality reacts to big events and how it truly effects them. On top of that, Mick and Daisy, teo of the main characters, eachtravels around parts of Europe and Africa, so you get to experience that also.
I want to start over again and start from the beginning, I can't wait for the second volume to come out!

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read Mike Bond's "America" in advance. This is one book I couldn't wait to dive into since I personally lived through the era it covers, as a child of the 50's and as an adolescent and young adult of the turbulent 1960's.
What I didn't realize was that the book is only only the first of a sprawling, multiple book saga. The timeframe I really wanted to read about - the upheavals of JFK's assassination, the Vietnam war and the youth revolution. really doesn't commence until the last few chapters of this first book.
The story primarily begins at the beginning, with the childhoods of the four major characters, Mick, Troy, Lara and Daisy, all of them growing up in a rural, farmland area of New Jersey.
Having to plow through the Huckleberry Finn-Tom Sawyer life of the two boys certainly wasn't what I signed to read, but Mike Bond is one hell of a writers. He made these characters and their world come to life and I found myself completely engaged with all of the coming-of-age chapters.
Later on, as the these four people move through their teen years, the story picks up real steam and becomes even more compelling, with the author seamlessly working in all the issues and events that defined and separated the confident America of the 1950's from the America whose very foundations were shaken at 60's progressed.
It's an ambitiously conceived saga and when the last chapter ended, I found myself hooked......there's no question that I'm eager to read the next book in the series. And for anyone afraid to take on an epic like this, I can only say that I found Mike Bond's writing swift, accessible and filled with knowing observations and viewpoints on those monumental times. Overall, a great read.

Thank you Netgalley, Big City Press, and Mike Bond for allowing me to read this ARC. I’m not sure what I expected from this book. The genre was Historical Fiction, and considering I had just finished one of my favorite historical fiction books of all time, I might have been expecting too much. I also might not have been the right audience for this book,
Certain terms were unacceptable to me, and the sex scenes were ugh. I’m still not sure what the story was, because nothing seemed to really happen. I never connected to any of the characters.