Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption in Reading with Style

Nov 20, 2018 Juniper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, library-borrow, biography, 2018-books, audiobook

this review is for the audiobook edition, narrated by edward herrmann.

this was such a great listen! there was a bit that got slightly bogged down -- a lot of historical information dumped at once. i am sure that would have been better in print. as well, (view spoiler) ...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Wendy rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, world-war-ii, memoir-biography, japan, survival

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The story of Louie Zamperini, a 4 minute Olympic miler, B-24 bombardier, castaway and POW is amazing. If anything, it's a little too amazing. I can see how this story of courage and survival has become a mainstream favorite (no fewer than 3 people recommended this book to me before I finally downloaded the audiobook for a long road-trip--perhaps the ideal format and situation for this long, harrowing book). LZ's story starts with a teaser prologue that gives the reader a glimpse of the drama/act The story of Louie Zamperini, a 4 minute Olympic miler, B-24 bombardier, castaway and POW is amazing. If anything, it's a little too amazing. I can see how this story of courage and survival has become a mainstream favorite (no fewer than 3 people recommended this book to me before I finally downloaded the audiobook for a long road-trip--perhaps the ideal format and situation for this long, harrowing book). LZ's story starts with a teaser prologue that gives the reader a glimpse of the drama/action to come--Louie in the water fending off sharks with his bare hands while a Japanese plane zooms overhead, strafing the area. This action prologue was probably a good call on the writer's/editor's part, as we are then rocketed back in time to Louie's childhood in Depression-era California, then to his remarkable (tragically short) Olympic career. Being a runner, I enjoyed the running segment a lot, but can easily imagine a reader with less enthusiasm letting her eyes glaze over here. Louie's running is interrupted by the start of WWII, and he trades his shoes for an Army Air Corps uniform and, as the prologue has already given away, is shot down somewhere in the Pacific. LZ's experience in a raft for 47 days, and his years as a POW of the Japanese, are as riveting as an action movie. However, I think the book falls short here for letting the action movie take over. A pattern is established: Louie meets an insurmountable barrier, and manages to overcome it by the sheer force of his iron will. Over and over. But we readers are shut out of Louie's inner workings. The trauma he experiences, which turns him towards alcoholism and away from his wife, is suddenly, inexplicably cured and explained away by a religious conversion that comes out of nowhere. I even wondered if I had picked up one of those Christian feel-good inspirational tomes by mistake, and had missed some "redeemed by Jesus!" cover blurb, or sponsorship by Billy Graham. More than anything, Louie's religious epiphany seemed to come so easily, the trauma from his past evaporate so quickly, that it seemed to me to take something away from all the other veterans who couldn't find an easy way out, and lived with the pain for the rest of their lives.

Still, this book works well as an inspirational "action movie" that is more interested in the "what happened?" than in the "why?" 3 1/2 stars ...more

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Nov 09, 2010 Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: source-library, nf-bios-memoir, nonfiction, format-audiobook, 2013

By now, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken has been on countless award lists and reader best-of lists. It has even won quite a few awards and after reading Unbroken, it isn't hard to see why. I waited a good three years before trying to read Unbroken because of the tremendous hype that followed this book (for good reason). I listened to the first quarter of this book in the car by myself and caught up with the rest of it with the husband while on a road trip to New York / Niagara.

Laura Hillenbrand has By now, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken has been on countless award lists and reader best-of lists. It has even won quite a few awards and after reading Unbroken, it isn't hard to see why. I waited a good three years before trying to read Unbroken because of the tremendous hype that followed this book (for good reason). I listened to the first quarter of this book in the car by myself and caught up with the rest of it with the husband while on a road trip to New York / Niagara.

Laura Hillenbrand has another hit book under her name - Seabiscuit: An American Legend, which I haven't read yet but I did watch the movie based on this book, a long time ago. So long ago that I didn't like the movie because it was about horses (I never did like watching movies about animals as a kid unless they were animated). Unbroken is as different as can be from Seabiscuit, though both are set against the same backdrop (World War 2). Louis Zamperini, the protagonist of Unbroken, grew up wild and defiant, always getting into trouble and disappointing his teachers and parents. His brother, Pete, taught him to channel his wild energy into running, an exercise that bored him initially but soon became his constant obsession and escape. He was such a fast runner that he was breaking records left, right and center. He had his eyes set on the 1936 Olympics, but failed miserably in his race due to poor fitness levels and overeating. (Honestly, this is one aspect of the book that baffled me. How could a person who had trained so hard and dreamed so much about the Olympics stumble so easily at the eleventh hour?) He decided that he had learned enough about the Olympics that he was going to aim for the next Olympics. There was not going to be another one. The war had other plans for him.

Louis enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was stationed in Hawaii. A particular bombing mission had destroyed his plane and so, one day, Louis accompanied his pilot Phil and a few other crew members on a particularly unfit plane called the Green Hornet on a search-and-rescue mission. Unfortunately for them, their plane had some serious hiccups and plummeted them straight into the middle of the Pacific ocean. With only three survivors (Louis, Phil and their bombadier, Mac) coming up to get on to a raft and no idea of where they were or in which direction they were drifting, their chances of survival were slim.

Most of the rest of the book focuses on that raft journey and the following capture and torture in Japan. To summarize thus, is to belittle this book, because in reality, what followed was an unbelievable story of survival, endurance, and human cruelties. If this was fiction, I would have probably said that the author made excessive use of manipulation, coincidences and graphic descriptions. The fact is most definitely stranger and usually more horrific than the fiction, and Louis' story proves that. How he survived the intense torture at the Japanese PoW camp, especially considering the sadistic interest a certain warden, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, had on him, is a testament to his (and other PoWs') will to survive. Watanabe, also called as The Bird by inmates, was bipolar. He would be exceedingly charming one instant and fly into a terrible rage the next. Anyone who had his attention, usually benefited from his debilitating torture methods.

Hillenbrand writes with creativity and intrigue. It is hard to put down the book, or in my case, stop the audio at any point without listening to one more sentence. The narrator, Edward Herrmann, also did a great job of narrating Louis' story with all the right inflections, emotions and tones. Still, most of the book was more a narration than a character sketch. Louis' actions let us see the person he is but to me, only the beginning and the end of the book portrayed the most detailed sketches of his persona. Somehow, while he was at war, the narrative becomes less personal and more journalistic, so that, I could never really be sure about what he was thinking or how he was coping, other than the obvious answer of "Not well at all".

The last few chapters, where we learn about the effect of the war on Louis, were clearly the hardest to read. Just as in the case of so many men who went to war, the pre-war Louis had vanished. There was none of that determination, persistence, commitment or happiness that used to define him. There was only despair, alcoholism, rage and depression, all of which worked to destroy him slowly. Hillenbrand eloquently paints a picture of self-destruction, which is obvious to all but Louis.

In a nutshell... Unbroken is one of those books that left me thinking and Wiki-ing for a long time after finishing the book. ...more

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Oct 04, 2024 Kim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star, non-fiction, audio, read-again, war, history, 1000books, memoir-a-b

4.05 rounded to 5 stars - This is a very moving and often disturbing book that tells the life story of Louis Zamperini, focusing primarily on his WWII experiences as a pilot and then prisoner of war, but also giving his backstory as a champion runner, and finishing with his healing journey after becoming a Christian. This is a book that bears rereading.

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