Sophie's Rebellion

Emily Walters Gregor is a graduate student in 20th-century American
literature and an ESL writing tutor at the University of Minnesota.

In Sophie’s Rebellion, Beverley Boissery transforms her historical
account of the Rebellion of 1838, A Deep Sense of Wrong, into fiction.
Her protagonist is Sophie, who travels with her stepmother into Lower
Canada to meet her father. En route, the two women find themselves at
the centre of the rebellion, taken as captives.

Boissery employs this captivity to portray a balanced picture of the
rebellion. Because of the close interaction between Sophie and Luc, a
rebel, the reader is given both English and French perspectives on the
war, its causes, and its effects. Boissery uses her deep knowledge of
the history of the period to her advantage, establishing a setting that
relies on details, not exposition, to depict events.

The book remains focused on providing a history of this Canadian event,
and less on exploring the main characters beyond their historical
circumstances. As such, Sophie’s Rebellion provides an accessible,
fictionalized account of the Rebellion of 1838 that would work best as a
complement to learning about the history of this time. Recommended.