Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Oct 09, 2013 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, history, lotsa-buzz, narrative-nonfiction, everyone-loved-it-except-me, era-world-war-2

Yet again I'm in the awkward position of hating a book that so many have loved. And yet, I am not mystified by the popularity of this book. Many people love stirring war stories of the Great Generation soundly trouncing their enemies, and they love religious inspirational stories, and they love redemption stories, especially redemption through suffering. But this book had a lot of themes that really bother me.

This tale is filled with rampant sexism, jocular references to prostitutes (who I'm sur Yet again I'm in the awkward position of hating a book that so many have loved. And yet, I am not mystified by the popularity of this book. Many people love stirring war stories of the Great Generation soundly trouncing their enemies, and they love religious inspirational stories, and they love redemption stories, especially redemption through suffering. But this book had a lot of themes that really bother me.

This tale is filled with rampant sexism, jocular references to prostitutes (who I'm sure didn't enjoy the experience as the Americans did), vile details about the Japanese that is sure to stir the blackest xenophobic heart, and endless rah rah courage-under-fire and grace-under-pressure stories. I'm sure it's all true, but that's not the point. Is it needed to tell a strong story? I don't think so. The third part of this book felt like torture-porn: how many highly detailed descriptions of torture does one book need? Frequent mentions of how sexually aroused the Japanese guards were by torturing the POWs makes the whole thing even ickier. On top of all that, I was rolling my eyes at the woo, at the declaration that Zamperini's family somehow had a hotline to God, and that's why they were so sure he wasn't dead. (I'm sure A LOT of soldier's families were "sure" their son was not dead - and a lot of them were wrong; belief isn't enough.) I didn't need to hear about how God saved Zamperini out at sea, how he lived because he just really wanted to live - I'm sure a lot of soldiers really wanted to live, but they died anyway. God didn't step in here, Zamperini just beat the odds.

I couldn't shake the impression that Hillenbrand had hoovered up every possible detail about Zamperini's life, and just dumped it all in, whether it strengthened the narrative or not. So many times (it seemed) I read that THIS was the turning point, then I went on to read more and more of the same that came before. How was it a turning point if nothing changed?

And it's BORING. Take the opening scene. Here you have this dashing airman w an impish smile and roguish grin, a former Olympic athlete for crissakes, downed over the Pacific, stranded in a life raft for weeks, surrounded by SHARKS, and fired on by Japanese Zeroes!!!! This is Die Hard material!! How can this be boring?? But it is. The story isn't boring, but it's so overladen w MINUTIAE that it can't carry the weight, and it draggggsss under the needless details. Every day of their 47 days stranded at sea is described, with the number of sharks and the size of the sharks described each day. I could have done with a lot less detail.

I guess I'm glad I read it. I did learn some things. For example: Hershey made emergency ration bars (part of the supplies on the life rafts) that were extremely high in calories, non-melting, and extra bitter to ensure the soldiers would not eat them unless it was a dire emergency.

I did wonder at Hillenbrand's choice to lay out all the nasty details (view spoiler) She even mentions later in the book that Louie and Phil had intentionally with-held that information after they were freed, in respect to Mac's family. So why reveal it now? I suspect it's because she couldn't resist throwing in one more redemption-through-suffering story, in a book already heavily laden with both redemption and suffering. ...more

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Sep 22, 2014 Jessica rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, kindle, nonfiction, biography

Last month was a rough month for me and I was not looking forward to reading WWII nonfiction for my book club, but I was running out of time and so after a couple of days of glaring resentfully at my Kindle I started to read Unbroken.

Mercifully, the book starts well before the war with the childhood adventures of Louis Zamperini as he grows from rough-and-tumble neighborhood menace to dedicated track star. At the age of 19, he goes to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and competes in the 5,000 meter r Last month was a rough month for me and I was not looking forward to reading WWII nonfiction for my book club, but I was running out of time and so after a couple of days of glaring resentfully at my Kindle I started to read Unbroken.

Mercifully, the book starts well before the war with the childhood adventures of Louis Zamperini as he grows from rough-and-tumble neighborhood menace to dedicated track star. At the age of 19, he goes to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and competes in the 5,000 meter race, and although he doesn't come close to winning he knows he has a good shot at the gold in four years. His training finds him closing in on what was then seen as an impossible feat, the four-minute mile, and Olympic gold is looking ever more likely. But then the 1940 Olympics are canceled, and Pearl Harbor is bombed, and instead of setting a world record for speed, Louis joins the Air Force.

Even at this point in the book, things aren't too dark. Louis is in training, making friends, learning a new skill as bombardier in a flight crew. He sees how often equipment failures and other acts of chance injure or kill people even outside of battle, but Louis's crew is skilled and their plane is sturdy and fate seems to be on their side for quite some time.

Everything changes when Louis and a few members of his crew are sent on a rescue mission in a dilapidated plane that suffers a mechanical failure over the Pacific. The crash kills all but three crew members; Louie and his friend Phil and a third man, Mac, lash together two life rafts and spend the next 47 days adrift on the Pacific with no food or water - they catch birds, fish, and rainwater when they can, and waste away to almost nothing. Mac passes away, and Louis and Phil are near death themselves when they finally land on an island shore - whereupon they are immediately captured by the Japanese. And this is the point where the book starts getting really hard to read.

Louis is transferred from one POW camp to the next, frequently abused even above and beyond the horrors his fellow POWs seem to be subjected to. It seems that Louis's Olympic fame is both the thing that saves his life - the Japanese feel it might be useful to have a famous American available to them and want to keep him around - and also the thing that causes some prison guards and officials to seek him out with particular malice.

This part of the book is difficult to read on a number of levels. The abuses in the POW camps are appalling, and spending so much time reading page after page of all the ways humans can be cruel to other humans is challenging. However, at this point in the book Hillenbrand is also weaving in tales about so many guards and POWs that it can be hard to keep people straight, which is a different kind of exhausting for the reader. Also, the whole book is by necessity based on people's recollections of a time more than half a century ago than most of them have probably worked hard to forget about, so there are times when the book feels a little less "nonfiction" and a little more authorial speculation about what people would have been thinking and feeling in the camps.

Overall I'm glad I read Unbroken, though I wish my reading hadn't coincided with a dark time in my own life. I'm glad to have learned about Louis Zamperini's life, and I think on the whole Hillenbrand did an excellent job telling the story. ...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Rae rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bio-memoir, 2012

An absorbing and very thorough biography of Louis Zamperini (a 1936 Olympic track star), who survived a horrific bomber crash into the Pacific during World War II. After drifting for 2,000 miles, he and his buddy were captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp. They were tortured day after day until finally being liberated after Tokyo was occupied. Hillenbrand has captured the essence of one of the greatest generation's finest!

This book is so detailed in its descriptions that at times it is ...more

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Jan 31, 2011 gwen g rated it it was amazing

Perfect airplane reading. I loved Seabiscuit a lot, but I think I loved Unbroken even more.

The story of Louis Zamparini -- an American Air Corps bombardier whose plane went down over the Pacific, stranding him on a raft for over a month and eventually making him a prisoner of war -- is amazingly compelling on its own, and Hillenbrand's writing is clear but evocative and just gets out of the way of the un-put-down-able story. It was a really wonderful way to carve out a small window from one pers ...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2012

I loved this, even though it was rough going at times. (Reading about Japanese POW camps will do that to me.)

This is the biography of Louis Zamperini, childhood hooligan, teenage athlete, Olympian, WWII airman, plane crash survivor, POW, and beyond.

The author, Laura Hillenbrand - who wrote Seabiscuit, which I also loved - is an amazing writer, and clearly did metric tonnes of research for this book.

Really amazing story, and story-telling.

Note: if you are going back in time and fighting for the A ...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Lori rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio, non-fiction

Just a crazy story, so hard to believe it was reality. These kind of stories always make me so thankful I live where I do, when I do. Great listen!

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Oct 23, 2012 Julianne Dunn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Absolutely riveting. I don't think there is enough written about the POWs in WW2 in Japan and this story follows Louis Zamperini, a bombadier, and his struggles including surviving lost at sea, only to be captured by Japanese. Read by Edward Herrmann, I was completely wrapped up in the story the entire way. Brilliant. ...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

I have some quibbles with the writing and the pacing of the book, but this was informative and inspiring. The epilogue, so to speak, of time after the war was somehow more heart-wrenching than all the trauma that came before. Definitely worth a read, to remind us of why we fight, and why we must understand those who have fought.

If my sister hasn't read this yet, she should get on it. Stat... ...more

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May 17, 2011 Deb rated it it was amazing

Powerful, beautifully told true story of an American POW (Pacific)during WWII... at once I was horrified by man's capacity for cruelty and for man's ability to endure, survive and find redemption at the end of it all. Amazing book! ...more

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