Fabulous book as is always from Terry Deary

As with all his books I find this to be very interesting and amusing!

It begins with sobering statistics of poverty amongst children in the UK and then backtracks though key events such as The Peasants Revolt of 1381.

A comedic look at a point of history and no it’s not horrible histories!
This was a little more grown up in the language than the HH series but still full of very interesting facts and witty humour.
I unfortunately struggled with my ARC as it felt as though it lacked some editing and formatting- which I hope would be rectified in the final out to print and buy version.
Maybe less wordy and a clearer chronological order would’ve earned another star

My thanks to Netgalley and Pen and Sword for a copy of “ The Peasants Revolting Lives “ for an honest review.
I found this a really interesting and informative read told with humour , as you would expect from Terry Deary.
Talk about the ‘ good old days’ ! What lives the poor lead , and as for the cruelty inflicted on animals in the name of entertainment, I could hardly read some of the pages.
Loved all the Horrible History books I’ve read with my children and this book doesn’t disappoint .

Not only is The Peasants' Revolting Lives filled with great information, it has also unleashed the wit and sarcasm of Mr. Terry Deary.

Once I was able to follow the writing style, I settled in for the long haul. I was pleased that Mr. Deary took the time to add footnotes, as well, to help the reader further understand the material.

The peasants truly had revolting lives. No matter what the peasants did, they were not able to get out from under the foot of tyranny.
They lived in squalor, any increase in income came with an increase in taxes, medicine was not readily available, and they were made to play sports which could result in their death. The peasants quite literally worked themselves to death if the plague didnt get to them first.

I would recommend this book as a history lesson and as a pleasure read. It was well worth it.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and Terry Deary for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Skilled raconteur Terry Deary takes us back through the centuries with a poignant but humorous look at how life treated the common folk who scratched out a living at the very bottom of society. Their world was one of foul food, terrible toilets, danger, disease and death – the last, usually premature.


Having read Terry Deary’s books when I was younger, to be able to continue to read them as an adult is it a great thing. Full of his typical jokes and informal way of teaching you about the world, Terry Deary when it comes to history is in a class of his own when it comes to sharing history with the world in a way that makes it easier to digest than ever before.

Though the jokes can run a little dry, Deary’s style for telling you about a variety of subjects such as entertainment, lives and warfare, including some of my local history in Robert Kett makes for fascinating reading as he explores these subjects with his typical wit. What I enjoyed about Horrible Histories is magnified here and given more free reign and I enjoy the book for it.

An entertaining book as usual, I recommend it for anyone who likes history but needs something a little less heavy!

It was an interesting read as it tells the story by the POV of the peasants, looking at their life in every aspect.
We use to think about other ages as moments when life was simpler and easier.
The author does a great job in explaining that we are wrong and I liked his style of writing and the humour.
An excellent and informative read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

So let me be clear, huge, HUGE Terry Deary fan. I read the books, watched the shows, saw the movies, sang the songs...

This is a little more adult and hopeless than Horrible Histories but it has the same humor (Mr. Deary sure does love his puns) and you close the book fully confident that you have learned something.

The first 70 pages or so were a bit slow-going for me, maybe because of the themes but I read the rest of the book in one go and laughing out loud all the while. This when I was not feeling absolutely heartbroken and hopeless by how much things hadn’t changed.
The entire book does have a very defeatist streak or a more realist streak, depending on how you look at it but to counterbalance it, there is a lot of ridiculous stories, funny quotes, and the undeniable fact that some things albeit not perfect did change for the better. (Personal fave: the sports chapter, especially the athlete's quotes - footballer’s, ‘nough said).

If there is someone that I would want to be immortal, it’s this man. More Terry Deary, please!

Thank you to Pen and Sword History and NetGalley for this DRC

I always enjoyed reading Horrible History books with my children. This book is for adults but is written in a similar way to the Horrible History ones.
This book is easy to dip into. There are clearly laid out chapters, each with a different theme. It doesn't need to be read in order, so it's a good book to pick up if you haven't got time to read a longer book.
Terry Deary backs up his narrative with quotes, and discussion about the opinions of the time. He cleverly uses historical themes as well as more recent ones, and compares how things have changed.
It is an eye opener to read about the lives of the poor, and what went on behind the scenes in affluent times so to speak. Terry Deary uses a mixture of facts,seriousness, wit and humour to get his point across. This makes the book easy and enjoyable to read. It is informative, but also entertaining.
If you liked the Horrible History books then you will enjoy this.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for my ARC.

if you like history and you like comedy the Terry Deary books are for you. I liked this take on the Peasants. I marked it down because the flow of the material was all over the place. I also dont think it worked well on my Kindle as it was very broken up but that is nothing against the author as this was an ARC and it could be corrected with the real release. I will read another one by this author because i love the comedy that it added.

FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Pen & Sword for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.

This book was fascinating! I'd recommend it to anyone. After reading this book I feel especially well prepared for a night of trivia. It was incredibly perceptive as it explored daily life and personal practices, living situations, origins of certain folklore, and social implications of peasantry, leading up to their revolt.

I loved the beginning question about choosing to live in any time in history and the answers that followed.

In referencing the Golden Age, comparing its perils to today, it was an enlightening exploration of how the impoverished experienced a certain way of life that only illuminated today’s strides in addressing social injustice, occupational hazards, sanitation, animal cruelty, entertainment, death, marriage, childbirth, child labor, legislation, literacy, technology, educational systems, captivity, and even sports.

Occupations themselves, such as matchstick girls, stood out to be one of the most shocking to me as far as risk for safety is concerned especially because of how far we have come in this world. It really gave a lot of perspective, respect, and value to our advancement in civilization.

The writing style was upfront clear and honest which I liked and further emphasized the very matter of fact tone and subject matter. The content showed a stark contrast as far as how humanity and social norms in general have come, which also lended itself to some humor since some of the concepts back in the day were quite absurd. There were bits of personal interjections that were lighthearted and confirming to my feelings which made this an amusing book to read.

I won’t comment too much on the writing in more detail or the organization itself because I did receive an ARC that was more in somewhat of an outline form than a final, cohesive piece. I do think from that standpoint the final form will likely be supportive enough to deliver such great content.

The quotes from historical figures and summarizations of points in time brought so much enrichment and credibility. References to classic literature, various philosophers, and playwrights such as Shakespeare was incredibly satisfying to me.

I think that each topic could also be expanded to provide further historical context and rationales of the time in a series type form, so I will be looking forward to reading more from this author.

As always Terry Deary presents his readers with an equally informative as entertaining book. This book is divided into chapters such as "Food", "Warfare" and "Work". Within the chapter the timelines are a bit jumpy with one bit being about the Tudor era and the next the Victorian era, something that confused me in the first couple of chapters but I fell into the flow later on in the book. Deary talks about normal people through the ages with some mentions of well-known historical people (as well as quotes from a bunch of different people, both living and dead, from different time periods).

I'm not quite sure at what age group this book is aimed towards. I, as an adult, were entertained, sure, but also disgusted at times when certain things such like illnesses or in the chapter about crime, different punishments that was administrated to criminals throughout history. Then again, children like that sort of stuff? And the book's cover strongly indicates it is supposed to be a book for children, possibly middle-grade level.

This was a little bit of a let down as I loved Terry Deary's books growing up but even though the humour was still in the writing, the topic and time period jumped all over the place. This made it a bit difficult to flow what time period he was focusing on and I feel like if the contents had been gouped together a bit better than it would have made more sense overall.

This is an ambitious tribute to a huge section of the population who throughout history have been forgotten, largely ignored, their memory is not recalled by a statue except for a handful but who survived with courage and fortitude. It begins with sobering statistics of poverty amongst children in the UK and then backtracks to our forebears though key events such as The Peasants Revolt of 1381 as well as the oppressed of subsequent generations. There’s a wide range of subjects that are included and analysed with the peasants in mind, interspersed with appropriate quotations from a wide variety of sources and of course with the Terry Deary brand of humour for which he is well known.

This is a well written, lively book mixing sobering facts, debunking myths all of which is told with wit and puns. He makes valid points when comparing those who get their monuments to ‘greatness’ and the actions of those who don’t. Frequently, the overlooked conduct far braver acts then those that are remembered. Much of recorded history is written by the educated who are rarely peasants as an educated peasant would be one you probably wouldn’t trust to stay in his box and so of course these accounts will not often include peasantry as they are of no consequence. I especially like the peasants revolt sections which links to future protests such as the Luddites. The slavery of the industrial revolution factories contains shocking and horrifying anecdotes that demonstrate an apathetic lack of care that beggars belief. I like the section that looks at female peasants who’s lack of rights emphasises that’s its HIStory because HE is the lawmaker and she isn’t. It covers topics too numerous to mention but I found the development of football particularly funny.

I really like the premise of the book, it’s thought provoking and enjoyable as it’s written accessibly and humorously. Most peasants bar a few such as Wat Tyler are completely forgotten but the author shows they are the heroes of history and the progress and wealth of Britain is attributed to their hard labour. Terry Deary is a prolific writer and one I admire as he has encouraged a younger audience to take an interest in a subject I’m passionate about by taking a humorous approach and as a former history teacher I can only thank him for that. This book is suitable for adults and YA although good younger readers would probably enjoy it too.

With thanks to NetGalley and Pen and Sword books for the ARC.

Oh my goodness. I have never read a history book with so much humor and insight. I loved this book. Its a brief history lesson of British, Welsh, Irish, and French peasants and how they tried to live their lives and the struggle against the rich landowners.
I thought that some chapters were too brief...but then again this was NOT an exhaustive history on peasants revolting. It is at most brief glimpses into peasant lives.
I loved all the chapters except one...the sports one. I did not see how the peasants revolted.
A great book about some of histories forgotten peasants and their poor, hard scrabble lives.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, The Peasants' Revolting Crimes so when I saw that the author had a new release out, The Peasants' Revolting Lives I jumped at the chance of reading it and had devoured the whole book within hours of it landing on my Kindle - I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

The book was full of fun facts, the writing style was brilliant as I had expected from reading some of this author’s previous books and I was giggling at some of the witty comments and more than once I did think that the comments were a bit near the knuckle, it certainly made it a fun read and it is definitely my kind of humour!  The layout and chapter length was spot on too.

It was interesting and informative and an excellent read overall - it is 5 stars from me for this one, I thought it was brilliant - full of facts, and fun too, the perfect book to read if you are looking for something a little different too - very highly recommended!!