Customer Reviews

The Seekers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first two books in the series were good. What I noticed about this, one is that Phillip's character has changed dramatically. To the point where I don't recognize him anymore. The scenes of intimate nature in the previous books in the series were not very detailed which I prefer. In this one, however, he not only goes into detail but most of the encounters he spends pages on are horrible! I have never read so many rape scenes in my life!! (one is too many) one of these victims is only 10, the poor girl. It seems to ramble through the early 1800s with no real point in mind. There are places he will stop at and jump forward in time then flashback to where we just left off. I like to read to end my stressful day and go to sleep. This book near the end has done neither.

I was in the mood to pick up on a series and I wasn't expecting too much. Heck, I read the first two and I was satisfied. The characters tend to be a bit two dimensional and the "history" he integrates is often laughable (how many famous people can someone accidentally run into?) I don't expect perfection though, so not a big deal. In fact, I was riveted by the naval fight aboard the USS Constitution that Jared gets to experience. By far it is the most exciting portion of the novel.

But seriously, as others have mentioned: the rape scenes. There are more attempted rape (and successful) in this book than I have ever read. There's one about every 75 pages it feels like, including a ten year old girl, told in graphic detail. I understand Jakes wanting to tell it like it was, but when the rape scenes outnumber all other scenes, you're taking a step in the wrong direction. It gets to be where every male Jakes character is a lecherous drunken moron who has no regard for women. I get that women might have been particularly helpless in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but I got that point two books ago. Seriously I just don't see finding this as "entertaining" when there are so many of these scenes chucked in for no apparent reason. It's not that I feel they should never be in any book, just that this book seems to revel in including them.

I had the intent to read this whole series. I'll move on. It's what America should have done in the 70s to this guy.

Book 3 of The Kent Family Chronicles covers the period following the War of Independence.Jared Kent,son of Abraham Kent, the main protagonist of Book 2 "The Rebel",is left in Boston in the care of his uncle,Gilbert Kent, younger half-brother of Abraham and Gilbert's wife Harriet, a mean minded woman who resents Gilbert's affection for his nephew.Jared's only friend is his cousin Amanda who is several years his junior.After Gilbert's death, Harriet marries a fortune hunting gambler who not only gambles away all the family's money but who make improper advances to the 10 year old Amanda.Jared is forced to protect Amanda and wrongly believes that he has killed a man in self defence.On the same night Harriet is killed under the wheels of a carriage forcing Jared and Amanda to run away and begin an incredible journey-by foot-across country to Tennessee.They fall victim to a bogus preacher who kidnaps Amanda and sells her to an Indian tribe.Jared at once begins the near impossible task of finding and rescuing her.

John Jakes' Bicentennial series takes a leap forward in time -- and a leap to another perspective -- from the second book to this third one, "The Seekers." Now Abraham Kent, whom we last saw as a small boy bounding across the grass at the end of "The Rebels," is a grown man and is serving in the military as a sort of self-imposed exercise of personal growth. This third installment passes the perspective from father to son, and boy, is Philip Kent a different man through his son's eyes. Abraham sees him as stern, judgmental and seeking only to fit his son into an idealistic scenario with the Kent and Son printing empire. Philip has done well for himself since the end of the Revolutionary War and the hardship of losing Abraham's mother Anne (and truth be told, this dramatic change in his persona was set up by Jakes with Philip's devastation over Anne's death at the end of the second book). But with his wealth, Abraham argues, Philip seems to have become that which he hated as a young man -- the privileged, sanctimonious upper class.

Abraham, so put off by that, feels the call to explore the West, where he heads with his rather-unruly stepsister and now wife, Elizabeth Fletcher, who's also seeking an escape. But the West beats them both to a pulp. And really, all of the characters in this book take a severe beating. (Perhaps you've read the references to rape in the other reviews on this page?!) A reviewer of the second book lamented about the continually terrible events inflicting the characters. I didn't see that so much in "The Rebels," but boy did I see it in spades in this third one. Wow. Just one awful catastrophe after another. As the perspective changes again to Abraham's half-brother Gilbert, then to Abraham's son Jared, nothing seems to go right for ANY of these people, throughout the whole book. Trust me, it's ugly, and if you're female like me, the ending is particularly horrifying.

Is it a good book, a page-turner? Yes, I was kept riveted, if at times revulsed. Jakes is still a very fine executor of the writing craft. And I intend to stick with him to the end of the eighth book. But if some good things don't happen to these people soon, I'm not going to be highly motivated!

Have thoroughly enjoyed the Kent series. However, this was the least enjoyable of the series. You need to read it for continunity; however, it does drag at spots. Abraham is not one of Jakes' better characters.

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I just finished this book and I thought it was every bit as entertaining as the first two."SPOILER ALERT".Abraham Kent was a the son of Phillip Kent and you can see how his father has changed from the first book to the second after having lost his wife after she was kidnapped and drowned at sea trying to escape.I could see how as Phillip got older and successful he becomes more conservative i.e. a federalist.His son Abraham saw this everyday and so he marries his step-sister Elizabeth and moves out west wanting to have nothing to do with the east and its politics.The west promptly chews them up and spits them out.Their son Jared is a fascinating character and I love reading about him.His young sister Amanda Kent has it the worst and I won't say anymore about her.
Some people say this book has alot of rape scenes and there definitely are some but they illustrate how hard it was out on the frontier.Jared and Amanda met just as many nice people on their journey out west as they did bad.It is hard to read what happened to Amanda and I guess John Jakes could have left it out but I don't think it was gratuitous.
Anyways I love these books.John Jakes is a wonderful writer and I intend to read every book he has ever written."The North and the South" series was fantastic and "The Kent Family Chronicles" are shaping up to be just as good if not better.Read any of these you won't regret it.

Loved this book. It made me want to read every book in the series.

I find his writing disturbing. As a woman who works with victims of sexual abuse, I could not completely finish this book. The descriptions were too intense and graffic. It worries me that child molesters can access this type of material which is not porn and still get their high of seeing children raped. I would never recommend the book and would suggest the author needs sensitivity training. I know the book is supposed to be historical, but I also sincerely hope this nation was not founded by so very many low life scoundrels as appear in these books.

I really like The Bastard and I gave it 4 out of 5 and then the second book The Rebels was good but not as good as the first and I gave it 4 out of 5 becouse it was still a great book. Then the third vol in the Kent family is The Seekers and it's the best one yet. Finally the stories unfold and the charactors finally develope. Abraham Kent marries is hald sister and moves to the west. I really liked the store of Abraham in the west with there encounter witht he Indians and the strugles. You see the down fall of many characters you fell in love with in the first two books. In the middle things change and new stories begen to unfold which I liked. Then the book ends with a kinda of cliffhanger which makes you cant wait to read the next books. The best in the series so far and I cant wait to read the rest.