General Maximus Augustus is commander of Rome’s finest legions. He has known violence his entire life. When he and his best friend, Androcles, return from a long, bloody campaign, Maximus finds himself questioning his life.Word has reached Rome of a man named Jesus who is causing a stir in faraway Judaea. Maximus and Androcles are sent to ascertain the truth of the situation. Disguised ad a Jew, … ad a Jew, Maximus slowly begins to understand that the God of the Jews is the one true God.
This epic story is one man’s faith-building journey to find the purpose of life.
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Maximus is the perfect example of a great idea and not so great execution. The premise is interesting, Maximus has a lot of potential as a protagonist, and the story as a whole was promising. But the narrative was long and drawn out, poorly executed and organized, and repetitive.
The premise of this book is that of two war-hardened Roman soldiers, a general and his right hand man, are sent to Judea to investigate reports that some man, a Jesus of Nazareth, is forming a sort of army and posed a threat to Rome. While on this mission, the teachings of Jesus cause them to reflect on the beliefs they grew up learning, and the Spirit touches their hearts. It’s supposed to be about what happens to them, how their encounter with Jesus changes them, and what they do as a result.
See? An I intriguing storyline! Unfortunately, it doesn’t pan out.
The narrative isn’t consistent and sometimes it’s confusing how many times the perspective shifts between characters. In one chapter alone, we get the perspectives of Maximus, Androcles, Jershon, Liora, and Naomi. There is no clear shift between the perspectives. One sentence we’re reading Maximus’s thoughts, the next Jershon’s. Also, Maximus has the alias of Jacob when he’s in Judea and sometimes on the same page the name shifts (“Maximus said…” to “Jacob thought…”). That also gets a little confusing.
The character development feels stiff, forced, and sudden. Over the course of only a few days, Maximus becomes a completely changed man. Yes, that can happen and his heart had been prepared for quite some time. So maybe his change isn’t unexpected. But Androcles is sudden. He performs a complete 180, at nearly the end of the book. So close to the end he’s talking about Roman gods and what to believe and then suddenly he’s ready to embrace Christianity? Hmm. It just didn’t feel natural or like it was following a believable time line.
Speaking of time line, the amount of time it takes Maximus and Androcles to fall madly in love with two women, and to know that there are no other women in Rome who could be their equal (despite the fact that they have led the lives of soldiers almost exclusively for the last decade and haven’t had much, if anything, to do with society), is lightning quick and so unbelievable I kept rolling my eyes about it. I can’t tell you how many times we read about Liora and Sariah being unequaled in all the world. The repetition was wearing. The love interest also kind of shifted the import of the book from conversion to a love story. It became more about “what do I do about my feelings for Liora?” than “what are these feelings I’m experiencing when Jesus teaches? How can I reconcile this new information with what I learned growing up?”
The book is also long. Unbearably long. Many things are repeated, there are too many unnecessary details, and things of great importance receive a trifle amount of page room, while items of no importance get extra space. Then it ends rather abruptly, leaving too many loose ends to make me feel like the story wraps up.
My final gripe is how often everyone (and I mean *everyone*) cries in this book. Now, I’m giving Liora and Sariah a break, because they were probably hormonal teenagers who developed earth shattering crushes that completely changed them and they couldn’t help it. Okay. Fine. But by the end of the book, I was literally rolling my eyes in exasperation every time someone else’s eyes welled up with tears, was overcome with emotion, sobbed openly, or cried without restraint. Crying in some form is almost the only expression of emotion. Is it possible that two Roman generals could cry? We’ll sure. Is it possible for a myriad of other grown men could cry openly? Also yes. But so often? It’s unlikely. It made the characters uninteresting and annoying to me, rather than making me empathetic toward them. (On a similar note, “embracing affectionately” is apparently the only way hugs can happen.)
I will say that the historical information seems well researched and is presented in such a way that makes sense to the reader. I even had a couple “aha” moments in regards to early Christianity and my own beliefs. So I did feel those details were done well.
I’m aware that this review makes me seem very critical and cynical. I’m not. The idea of this book is one that would really pique my interest normally and I’d forgive a few narrative eccentricities. This book just has too many. It’s overdone and not really done well in the first place.