Title: Joe’s Alamo Unsung
Author: Lewis E. Cook
Publisher: Gf Publishing
ISBN: ‎ 1954168764
Pages: 238
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewed by: Aaron Washington
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Joe’s Alamo Unsung starts at a slow pace. The reader gets to experience the characters in a gentle and fun way, seeing how they execute their roles and the parts they play. As you keep reading however, you get to discover the author has something more interesting coming. The stories become more thrilling, the plot exciting and the action in the book gets to be more intense. Some characters change for the worst while others amplify their good traits. You will enjoy this book if you like fun plot twists. Joe Alamo’s Unsung is the kind of book you read thinking that you will predict the next course of action – only to be hit with a surprise from the author, as Lewis E. Cook knows how to twist the storyline to create a more intriguing and captivating tale.

Joe’s Alamo Unsung is not about just one hero. The book has several characters who play their roles well, so they can be crowned heroes in their own right. There is a massacre, and like any war, there are victims and survivors. Following the conflict, how the warring groups battled it out and the impact of the massacre was indeed fascinating. Some scenes were so extreme one could only imagine the impact the war could have had in real life. One character however stood out, Joe. This character is a favorite because of how distinctly he was developed; as surviving a war where your peers and the people you know perished can be devastating, Joe was beaten and wounded, but the skills he possessed saved him from death.

Lewis E. Cook wrote a compelling book which will have every avid reader enjoy the story. There are many characters that I found to be interesting in the book; they include Susana Dickinson, William Travis, and David Crockett. What I admired about this book is that the author not only gets readers absorbed in the story, but the reader also gets to learn about various life skills, and the impacts of war. One of the major lessons I learned from Joe’s  Alamo Unsung is to never give up even when you feel like you are on the edge. Life has a way of surprising people and even rewarding people for their efforts. The storyline in the book was generally witty and the reader gets to follow every character, event, and action, without struggle.

Some of the major themes shown in the book include loyalty, love, romance, war and conflict, oppression, race, religion and politics. I enjoyed the themes in the book because I could relate with most of them. Reading Joe Alamo’s Unsung will make you appreciate literature, history, and men who went into battle in history. You also get to learn about societal norms which are problematic and how the world keeps changing.  This book would appeal to lovers of fiction, in particular historical fiction, as well as thrillers, and books that have intense action.