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I read the first chapter of this in an English class (high school maybe?) and for some reason I thought "The Things They Carried" was just a standalone short story? But I remembered LOVING the short story. And then, embarrassingly late in the game, I realized there's a whole book of it. It's all amazing. Beautifully written & unafraid to tackle huge human truths. Highly recommended (if you didn't already know that this was a book).
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Heartwrenching and beautiful and honest. I usually hate Vietnam stories because they are so bleak and horrible and inhumane, and this book is that in sections, but kind of shows you how you could get to that place too and somehow recover. Or never recover totally but still be humane. The story about his decision not to dodge the draft is the most dead-on portrait of an American I've read. I sobbed the whole way through the description of the people on the shore of the river, on a bullshit Virgin
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I usually like 1960s Vietnam pieces, but I don't know...something just didn't gel with me regarding this. I enjoyed it, but I also am left feeling very "meh" towards the book. I want to mark this as "read this again later", because something tells me if I tried reading this again next year, I'd like it more. (shrug)
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Audiobook narrated by the man, the myth, THE CRANSTON.
For all that I sort of knew what the book was about, I wasn't prepared for what a great book it would be about writing, and the nature of storytelling. ...more
For all that I sort of knew what the book was about, I wasn't prepared for what a great book it would be about writing, and the nature of storytelling. ...more
I read this when I ta'ed a class on War a long time ago. Not only did I enjoy it but it was a required class and in a large class of non-English majors teaching novels and literature is often times a hard sell but almost everyone really enjoyed it and wanted to talk about it. The story/character that always sticks in my mind is lemon tree.
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Jul 03, 2008
akaellen
marked it as to-read
Apr 15, 2009
Julie
marked it as to-read
Sep 27, 2009
Ashley
marked it as to-read
Apr 22, 2013
Jess
marked it as to-read
Jul 07, 2014
Heather
added it
Jan 16, 2016
Lisa
marked it as maybe-someday
Jan 30, 2016
Becca
marked it as to-read
Apr 26, 2019
Laine
marked it as to-read
