Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

473 Pages

Hardcover

Non-Fiction

This is the 3rd book we have read in the book club I have joined. The second was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I haven't actually read that yet. 

The book mainly follows the life of Louie Zamperini. It starts with a teaser of military men stranded on rafts in the middle of the ocean. Japanese planes fly by and fire their guns. From here we are brought back in time to when Louie is a little boy. We learn that basically he was a misfit that was constantly getting in trouble. Stealing, smoking and causing trouble. It isn't until late in his teens that he finds his calling in life. He is a runner. He quickly becomes one of the best mile runners in history and eventually makes it into the Olympics. Soon after World War II is thrust upon America. We follow him as he goes through training and becomes an airman. Specifically, he runs the bombing instruments on the planes. 

He is sent to the Pacific and joins in on bombing runs in a plane called Super Man. Through a series of events he is stranded with two other men in two small rafts with no supplies and eventually gets captured by the Japanese and is held in POW camps on an island near Japan. 

I have always had a deep interest in the stories of people thrown into the hell we call war. I have read a number of books on victims of the Holocaust, stories of soldiers at war in WWII, Vietnam and others. Unbroken certainly delivers in this respect. Though I did read Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, this is the first time I read much about POW's on the Pacific side of the war. Subject wise I was very drawn into the book. 

I found it very engrossing, but there was something about Hillenbrand's writing that didn't sit well with me. You can tell that the story is pieced together from many different accounts. The final 50 pages are all reference and notes which make this clear. There were a few sections where the book dragged a bit. These were early in the book recounting his teenage hijinks, in the middle of the book when it focuses on Louie's family and towards the end when it covers the aftermath and the declining years of his life. Not that I didn't think those things were important, just that it seems a bit overdone.

It might sound like I didn't like anything. That isn't true. The parts I did enjoy really drew me in, but I often felt like I was reading textbook material rather then a recount of a man's life, which it presents itself as.

4 Intellectual/Emotional - Experiencing a lesser known part of the War was certainly worthwhile and you can't help feeling for all the trials the men went through.

3 Style/Readability - As mentioned I had a few problems with the "cobbled" together way the book felt at times, but I also burned through the whole thing in six days so it was easily read.

2 Long Term Impact - I am not interested in reading other work by Hillenbrand maybe to my loss. I feel that other books that cover this subject has been more rewarding.

9 out of 13. It was worth reading, but if you are looking to experience the horrors of war there are a few other books you should check out first. Night by Elie Wiesel, The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

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