No Surrender - Christopher Edmonds

Chris is a son who didn't get a chance to discover how much of a hero his father was while he was alive. When Chris's daughter has a school assignment, Chris's interest in his father is rekindled. He leaves a comment, and it leads down a path of discovery and learning.

The middle part of the book was the best part. It was when the author took the interviews and research and put together the story of what actually happened. The beginning focuses more on Chris. What I would consider the meat of the book ends on page 293. On the Amazon page, the book is listed at 352 pages. So what's in the rest of the book? The very end is repetitive of things that were mentioned earlier. I skimmed through that. The afterword gave updates on what happened to some of the men mentioned in the book. 

I had some issues with the book. The Notes section of the book had to be the most frustrating. They should have been footnotes throughout the book. A note would give a few words of the quote and where he got it. No page number or anything. Many times throughout the book, I would read something and wonder how he knew that. When I first started reading the middle section, I had no idea he'd met so many people. That was cleared up at the end.

The other issue may or may not be Kindle specific. The pictures were extremely tiny. They also gave credit, but most of them weren't labeled in any helpful way. Even if I could make out what I was looking at, I didn't know who it was or why I was looking at it.

The story itself is great. Roddie was an inspiration to his men, but I feel like it's important to realize they were all heroes as well. When the Germans were asking almost 1300 men to obey, they all stood firm. Under Roddie's leadership, yes, but it still took strength for them not to cave under those conditions.

I liked the middle part so much that I almost forgot the tedious nature of the beginning, but then I made it to the end, and it all came rushing back. I enjoyed reading the stories of the men involved, but I feel like Chris's part in the tale could've been summed up in a prologue. He could've summarized the results of his journey in an epilogue and how his father was recognized. Then the book would've been focused more on Roddie. In my opinion, it just needed a bit of polishing.