Sorry kids, no feet.

According to the reviews, it seems I am one of only a few people who did not care for this book. 

Maybe it's because I'm just not all that interested in American history. As an American, I'm much more worried about how people are going to study current events under the historical microscope. I don't know much about the warring Whigs and Democrats of the 1800s. I learned the basics in school but still relied on Google to fill in the blanks. 

Lack of historical knowledge aside, I was bored. Cage just seemed to wander through life. He was a writer who didn't really write. He had money but I never felt like I figured out where it really came from. The few business investments he had didn't seem like enough to justify his days of sitting around general stores discussing politics. The author spent 80% of the book dealing with Lincoln's time in Illinois before he married Mary Todd and then crammed the events of the Donner party (which Cage was conveniently a member of) and the Civil War into what felt like 20 pages. And, oh by the way, Lincoln's a Republican now. There are no more Whigs. Wait? What? Apparently the author is going to assume my 7th grade American History class got that involved in what happened there. For a book that was suppose to be an in-depth look at how Lincoln became the president we all know and admire, I never once got a sense that Lincoln was going to be Lincoln. 

If not for Book-oply, I would have never ever picked up this book. On to the next roll!