“Winston Churchill: A Life” by John Keegan

In this biography of Winston Churchill, the readers review Winston Churchill’s life in the normal biography way- as boring as possible. The book starts off describing Churchill’s family- his socialite mother and his politician father. Even though his father was cold to him, little Winston still admired his father greatly. Winston was surprisingly horrible at school, but still found time to read extensively- only allowing his love for his country to grow. The book follows Winston’s infamous army life and his political point of views. Then it ends, as most biographies do– with about five pages of how awesome Churchill was.
As a nonfiction advocate, I was looking forward to reading this biography- thinking that it would be enormously interesting and entertaining. But I was proved wrong. This book made me forget my love of biographies. Normally people say how much they love fiction books– and how nonfiction books are so “not cool” or just “boring.” And usually, I stand up for nonfiction and the biographies that are included in it. But this book written by the well-known historian John Keegan was indescribably dull. The characters were discussed well and the setting was expertly recounted; yet it lacked wit, or something- anything- that allowed readers to not fall asleep. The mood- well, there wasn’t one. Readers might have felt a bit of pity for Winston when his father died, or a little suspense when he was off in the army, but otherwise- for someone with such an interesting life- John Keegan sure made it sound monotonous. Instead of liking the person even more, which normally occurs after the reading of a biography, I felt almost indifferent to the legendary Winston Churchill.
I know I sound harsh, for someone who (usually) thoroughly enjoys biographies- so I’d like to point out the good parts in this review of Winston Churchill. The information in this book was portrayed with articulate sentence structure. The paragraphs were skillfully written. The details were accurate, or at least made to sound accurate. The book embodied a true fan of the army hero-turned-politician. The summary of his beneficial being to the world was beautifully written. Yet the stodgy feel of the book was too much of a drawback. As an eighth-grade honors English student, I give this book one out of five stars.

Meghan