Charles and Emma

I started this book and got bored very quickly. I thought I was going to have to start skimming until I came across something interesting. I stayed with it and after the children were born the book did get a little more interesting. I did not like where Charles talked about his work and his books, particularly the religious stuff. I could see this book raising a few eyebrows here in the Bible Belt because of the parts about God, the Bible, creation, and some of the other things Charles studied and talked about. His experiments with his children were interesting and the deaths of three of the children were sad because they were so young. Such was the time, I guess. Medicine had not progressed enough to treat and even cure many of the ailments that were fatal during the early part of the 1800's. The illness that Charles endured most of his adult life was never made clear, but then, it probably wasn't known exactly what was wrong with him. He even said the doctors could not figure out what the problem was. I was wondering if a higher power was trying to tell Charles to change his beliefs. I had to admire Emma. She maintained her ideas about faith throughout all of the tragic situations she and her family experienced. She remained strong during all those years, which were some of the qualities Charles liked about her before they married and continued well into their later years. Reading this book expanded my knowledge of Charles Darwin. I have always heard that he was against God and the Bible, and he believed humans were descendants of apes. Now I realize that perspective has been skewed a little all of these years. I can not remember reading a biography on him or much of anything else, so this book was new information for me. My understanding of the person who was Charles Darwin is more open now. Some of the ideas about his work I can see how he came to his conclusions, but other parts I could not understand why he wanted to be so stubborn. I believe the author did a good job in bringing out the characters with their thoughts and emotions. Boys might would want to read it for the science part, but I think girls would dominate because it is basically a love story with real people.