Secure Your Copy Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand Accessible As Paper Copy

solid and resounding.stars
The promotional buzz for this book focuses on Louis Zamperini's survival at sea after a WWII plane crash, and his subsequent ordeal as a POW in Japan.
If that's what piqued your interest in the book, I suggest beginning with Chapter,or a few pages before, so you can get the part about the crash.
For the first eleven chapters, it's as if Hillenbrand couldn't decide which story she wanted to tell, Instead, she tried to tell them all, and did so poorly, You can quickly scan those chapters for basic background I did, but you won't be missing much if you just blow right past them.
If you're old enough to remember thes and earlys, you may enjoy these chapters for the sake of reminiscence,

Beginning with Chapter, the book becomes more strongly focused, Louie's story sweeps itself along, and the author's presence becomes less noticeable, I can't call the story "inspiring," because I honestly think death would have been preferable to what these men endured, Louie himself stated: "If I knew I had to go through those experiences again, I'd kill myself, "
So, inspiring, no. But AMAZING, yes. Such ingenuity, persistence, and unwillingness to be broken by their captors is impressive and difficult to fathom, They continued to suffer upon return to the U, S. , because the mind and body don't forget such traumas,

Final Analysis:
Astoundingly thorough research, serviceable writing, and, sorry to say, apparently no editorial oversight, From Chapterto the end, it's a fourstar offering well worth your time, Louie the man is tenstar material! Read it for sure, just know that my lessthanexceptional rating concerns a need to cut a great deal of material from the book.
Remember when we used to have live TV and stations would air previews for a program they were trying to promote Have you ever then gone and watched that program only to discover that the preview was kind of misleading

Well, the previews for this book are wicked misleading.
Everything about itthe jacket cover, the sitelinkbook description, . . ok, maybe just the jacket cover and the book descriptionled me to believe this was a story about a World War II soldier lost at sea.
And yes, there is certainly a section of the book that chronicles the experiences of a few Army Air Force personnel who become stranded on a raft in the South Pacific following the crash of their bomber, but the scope of the narrative encompasses much more than that.
In fact, the “raft stuff” doesnt even constitute the most compelling parts of this book, So what gives, Random House Why you be unnecessarily deceitful

Whats appreciable about Hillenbrand, who by the way suffers from a chronically debilitating disease which often leaves her confined to her home for days at a time I dont know why I felt the need to mention that, is her ability to relay a story that depicts a person at what we imagine to be his worst, only to reveal slowly a situation of progressively deepening madness, and she accomplishes this without running out of adjectival modifiers that would otherwise be needed to bring the readers jaw closer and closer to the floor.
In other words, Hillenbrand knows how to tell a story, and this book, a biography of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini, which focuses on his life in a Japanese POW camp, is a prime example.
I cannot possible do justice to this amazing history of one man's journey through the hell of Japanese POW camps in WWII and the aftermath of those horrors.
The author pulls no punches regarding the man's experiences which makes the book sometimes difficult to read,

Louis Zamperini was a US Olympic runner who joined the Air Corps when WWII broke out and was a bombardier when shot down in the middle of the Pacific.
He and a few others were lucky enough to inflate a raft and began floating in unknown waters, surrounded by sharks, They drifted fordays and the men began dying, leaving only Louis and one other flyer still alive, They finally ended up on an island held by the Japanese and the ordeal began,

Louis was moved to three different POW camps and how he lived through some of the punishments were unbelievable, In particular, one guard, known as The Bird who was a raving psychopath, picked out Louis for "special" treatment which I will not repeat here.
It should be noted that of the,American prisoners of the Japanese, more thandied,

The dropping of the atomic bomb ended the war, the guards fled the camps, and Louis survived, He returned to the US a broken man with what now is called PTSD, He became a violent alcoholic, haunted by the thoughts and hallucinations of The Bird and it appeared that his life was over, Then something happened that changed all that, The ending of the book is uplifting and Louis lived on to carry the torch in theOlympics,

I highly recommend this book but the reader should be aware that it is very graphic and emotional,F. A. B. Bookclub pick I. . F. A. B.

Im in awe, I cannot imagine living through this amount of torture and torment, Its truly heartbreaking, the catastrophes of war, This mans determination to survive was simply amazing, I can see why there was a movie made, Just wow I've just finished this awesome book, and have since washed the tears from my face, I can't hope to write a coherent review there are so many good ones already written, so I'll just jot a few thoughts down:

This is why I love nonfiction.


Best book by far I've read this year,

Every positive cliche adjective should be applied to this story,

isn't enough,

If it was fiction, you wouldn't believe it,

Go buy yourself a cloth hankie, 'cause a kleenex ain't gonna cut it by the last chapter,

Makes me wish my dad was still around so I could ask him about the war,

My next book is going to SUCK in comparison might as well reread Breaking Dawn then,

Read this great review by my GR friend Amy S: sitelink goodreads. com/review/show/
her review made me want to read this book great job Amy!

Perfect book to wrap up on Memorial Day,:
To those who served, to those who still serve, to those who made it back, to those who didn't, to those who still suffer in ways we cannot imagine, thank you.

Thank you.
Thank you. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

I wanted to listen to this audiobook in the past and I do read/listen to books based on the experiences of men and women who have been lost overseas during wartime but I saw the movie trailer based on this book and I shied away from the story.
Several years later I downloaded the book so that I could listen to it, forgetting about the movie trailer I saw, I'm very glad I did listen to this book but it is one of the most upsetting books I've read, The brutality is unbelievable and the statistics regarding the torture and loss of so many people, including civilians, is so high I can't even get my mind around the numbers.


Then there is the amazing resilience of some of the people that survived the worst that man can throw at them.
This doesn't take away from all those that didn't survive, these men were going through the unsurvivable and somehow made it out of the other end of their captivity.
Still, the damage was done physically, mentally, and emotionally and the road back to living among others at home was a challenge in itself.


I already knew of Louis Zamperini because I'm a big fan of track and field old timers, But I also knew of him because I read about the life of William Frederick Harris who spent time in captivity or trying to escape captivity.
He became good friends with Zamperini when they were in captivity together and at one point Zamperini tried to nurse Harris back to health when he was beaten into a long term stupor.


This story takes us from Zamperini's youth, through his great running feats, including the Olympics where Hitler spoke to him, through his military plane being shot down and surviving endless days on a raft at sea.
Then his long captivity and his beatings by captors that singled him out because he stood up to them but also because he'd been an Olympic athlete.
So many pieces of Zamperini's story could make up a book, so much happened to Zamperini and those around him, I'm just amazed and inspired by Zamperini and the people who kept on under impossible odds, I can't stop talking about this book to my husband, I still can't watch the movie, it's too much, but I'm so glad I read this book and got to know more of this man and also got to know about many other heroic men that survived captivity and helped others to survive, too.


First published November,I was cleaning up after the wife and I had dinner last night and there was a small amount of green beans left.
There werent nearly enough for another serving to make them worth saving so I dumped them in the sink, but just as I was about to turn on the garbage disposal, I realized that to the POWs described in Unbroken those few green beans I was about to mulch would have been a feast they would have risked torture and beatings for.
I was disgusted with myself for the rest of the night, You know the book youre reading is hitting you hard when you feel that much shame for letting a tiny bit of food go to waste.


Louie Zamperini is one of those guys who definitely earned that Greatest Generation label, The son of Italian immigrant parents, Louie was a rebellious kid who was constantly into one form of mischief or another, but when he finally channeled his energy into running, he became a high school track star in California.
Louie was so good that he made theOlympics in Berlin at the age of, and even though he didnt medal, he ran one lap of a race so quickly that he electrified the crowd and even caught Hitlers attention.


As a college runner, Louie held several national records and many thought that hed be the man to eventually break the four minute mile.
He was poised to do well in theOlympics, but then World War II cancelled the games, Louie left college and ended up in the air corps even though he was scared of planes, He became a bombardier and went to the Pacific after Pearl Harbor, Louie survived several missions, including one where their Bbarely made it back with overholes in it,

While on a search and rescue mission, Louies plane crashed in the ocean, and

only he and two others survived, With few supplies on two tiny life rafts, theyd endure exposure, starvation, thirst and sharks,

However, after finally reaching an island and being captured by the Japanese, Louies hellish experience as a POW would make him miss the raft and the sharks.
Starved, beaten, tortured and degraded, Louie also faces extra punishment at the hands of a brutally sadistic guard who singled him out, Louie and the other prisoners desperately try to hang on long enough for America to win the war and free them,

I didnt care anything about race horses, but found Laura Hillenbrands Seabiscuit an incredibly interesting read, Shes surpassed that book here with this well researched story, Hillenbrand creates vivid descriptions of Louies childhood, the Berlin Olympics, the life of an air man in the Pacific, and a Japanese POW camp while also telling the stories of the people around Louie.


She also does a superior job of describing a phase of World War II that tends to get overlooked, Japanese war crimes against prisoners.
The number of prisoners killed by the Japanese through starvation, beatings and forced labor are staggering, but Hillenbrand also shines a light on the Japanese policy of killing all POWs if that area was about to be invaded.
Per her research, they were preparing to begin slaughtering prisoners in Japan in late August and September of, but the dropping of the atomic bombs and the surrender of the emperor probably saved those POWs lives.
If the war would have carried on or a conventional invasion done, then mostly likely those prisoners would have been killed,

Do not take this as my personal feelings about whether nuclear weapons should have been used or not, Im just relaying a part of the book here, and Hillenbrand makes no argument as to whether dropping the bombs was justified, She writes that many of the POWs believed that the bombings probably saved their lives and leaves it at that, And if you feel like trying to start a comment fight about it, Im just going to delete it so dont bother, I left my sword and shield at home today and dont feel like battling trolls,

Ultimately, while this is a book about people enduring incredible hardship and cruelty during war, it's a hopeful book, not a depressing one.
Great writing and the care that Hillenbrand took with the people and places make this compelling reading,
.