It's a real page turner, though I had to read it only during the daylight hours, as sleep would allude me after reading of the horrors and realities of war, in particular Japanese POW camps--where Geneva convention rules were not followed. This lady did her homework and documented every smidge of detail---think, a 14 page index and 50 pages of notes and citations.
Definitely a work of non-fiction! If this were a work of fiction, you wouldn't believe it!
As strange as it sounds, I'm glad that I read it. Hillenbrand introduced me to real heroes. Regular guys just like my dad. Places mentioned awakened my Daddy's voice in my head recalling his story of basic training at Hickam Field in Honolulu, even though he was in the Army and not the Air Force. As a young married 19 yr. old, he had his first taste of "fresh" pineapple in fields near that base. He and some of his buddies pulled the fruit up right from the field. Daddy remembered how those pineapples they burned his mouth---not like the Del Monte canned ones on the shelf at Davenport's grocery in Clarksville, TN, owned by his father-in-law.
Later, he was shot by Japanese snipers on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, an event that would require hospitalization thus saving his life. The sergeant who replaced him, along with his entire platoon, was killed the next day. Having read the book, I understand why Daddy rarely spoke of those events. As the real life characters in the book, he, too, must have found it too painful to recall.
Unbroken is, as the subtitle suggests, a story of survival, resilience and redemption. Well-written and "needful" but a hard read all the same---not for complexities of text but because of topic. Atrocities of war!
If you do pick it up---you MUST read to the end---that's where hope lies!! The final chapters and the Epilogue make it "worth the read."
