****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Out of 1-5 books in this series (now another book 6), I initially skipped this one because of the reviews in regards to Charles Hall's experience in the Vietnam war. It's not that I didn't find that last part of the book interesting, but it had nothing to do with the Tall Whites. Although, previously mentioned, he was only writing his stories for his children/grandchildren. Just like the other 4 books in this series (not counting number 6), the editing or should I say 'lack of editing' is the only drawback. I've continued to read/listen to this series because of the Tall Whites. The storyline is great, I just had to get past the self-editing. The main story is still worth 5 stars in my opinion. I've watched many of his interviews and he is a kind, honest and Godly man. I don't doubt his stories to be anything but true.Furthermore, I know this series was self published, self edited and the same goes for the audio (which I listened to), but during the audio nobody told Charles and his wife (who reads the front matter) that it's not necessary to read ALL the front matter. This includes the LCCN and the copyright word for word, and all the numbers. In this audio, it was showing chapter seven before the story started and that chapter was 1.5 hours long. At times during the audio, I could here a lot of background noise, a lot of echoing and the sound levels weren't level. I'm not deducting stars for lack of editing or knowledge on how to do these things, but I do wish someone could've reached out to help them do this up to standard. There were so many, throughout the book, if not nearly every sentence more telling instead of showing. The rule of 'show not tell' comes to mind as well as the multiple uses of adverbs, which drove me a bit crazy, lol. Also, whomever posted these book should go back, I know it can be done easily, and rename the series numbers. Such as this book is listed as lii NOT III as it should be or simply use the number 3. Several of the other books are listed the same way. Typo, yes, but important to fix those little errors in the main titles. I'm not saying this to down the story. I'm hoping that Charles Hall will see it as trying to help him, not being critical in a bad way, but a learning way. I still love his experiences and I'm sure this series is doing well and will continue to do so. If I didn't like the series, I would not be continuing to book six.
