I first heard about this book from a coworker of mine. He read it several years ago and had nothing but good things to say about it. I've had it on the backburner ever since, fully intending to get to it at some point but just never managing to. This month, however, a group of fellow book friends decided to give it a shot, and I tagged along. I'm....mostly satisfied with my experience with this book! Going into it, I had previously read [b:The Count of Monte Cristo|7126|The Count of Monte Cristo|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611834134l/7126.SY75.jpg|391568] last year and I knew very little of French history.

The entire Dumas family was super interesting to read about, with the whole take on slave ownership being turned on its head for large parts of the book. They had some progressive ideas in the beginning, even if they didn't always follow through on them. Alex Dumas was an accomplished military man, no question about it, and his dedication to a country that didn't always have his back was commendable.

I'm not huge on military history, I'll just address that now. I honestly had to force myself through large parts of the middle of the book about military logistics and who was sending letters to whom and where troops were going. Large parts of the book didn't even mention connections to Dumas-any Dumas-and while I thought the historical aspects were interesting, it felt disconnected and boring in places. The author clearly did the research though, and the footnotes and asides he throws in about random details were entertaining. Almost a third of the final part of the book is nothing but bibliography and end notes, though, which surprised me a bit when the book ended much earlier than I was expecting.

This was still an entertaining read, I just wish it were a bit more focused.