{"id":11774,"date":"2013-07-16T13:30:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T18:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=11774"},"modified":"2013-07-16T13:30:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T18:30:34","slug":"book-review-unbroken-by-laura-hillenbrand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2013\/20130716-11774.htm","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: &#8220;Unbroken&#8221; by Laura Hillenbrand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we were looking for a book to read for the new bookclub a few friends were forming, I suggested <i>Unbroken<\/i> by Laura Hillenbrand. I had to look up the description of the book in order to suggest it, since I didn&#8217;t have any idea what the actual content of the book was. <\/p>\n<p>I just remember <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hopeisthewordblog.com\/2011\/02\/14\/unbroken-by-laura-hillenbrand\/\">Amy<\/a> declaring that it was going to be the best book she&#8217;d read in 2012-despite having read it at the very beginning of the year. And I remember <a href=\"http:\/\/www.readingtoknow.com\/2011\/09\/unbroken-by-laura-hillenbrand.html\">Carrie<\/a> reading it and loving it. And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acrossthepage.net\/2011\/01\/unbroken\/\">Janet<\/a>. It ended up on <i>both<\/i> of the Lisas&#8217; (<a href=\"http:\/\/lisaspence.com\/2011\/12\/30\/favorite-reads-of-2011\/\">Lisa Writes<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/lisanotes.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/my-11-favorite-books-of-2011.html\">Lisa Notes<\/a>) lists of best books read in 2011<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarah.wordpress.com\/2012\/08\/27\/book-review-unbroken\/\">Barbara<\/a> said it was excellent. In other words, almost every blogger I know and respect absolutely loved this book.<\/p>\n<p>Now I know why.<\/p>\n<p>So that you&#8217;re not as clueless as I was when I suggested this book to my club friends, I&#8217;ll give you a bit of a summary before I start raving. <i>Unbroken<\/i> tells the true story of Louie Zamperini, a neighborhood rascal turned Olympic runner turned B-24 bomber turned castaway turned POW turned alcoholic turned&#8230; This man&#8217;s life is astounding. After every section, I kept expecting this to be the end of the story, but it kept going. When Louie almost breaks the 4 minute mile, I think that he&#8217;s reached the pinnacle of his life&#8230;but his story has only just begun. When he survives for what seems like forever on a raft in the Pacific Ocean without food, I think he&#8217;s reached the height of human endurance&#8230;but his trial has only just begun. When he survives the terrible existence of being an undocumented Japanese POW, I think that his troubles are finally over&#8230;but he will now find himself battling with his worst foe yet. The subtitle of this volume is absolutely right. This is &#8220;a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>In no particular order, here are a few (not all) the reasons why this book is one of the best books I&#8217;ve ever read&#8211;and why it&#8217;ll be tough for us to beat it as a book club read:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It&#8217;s an absolutely riveting story of an endlessly fascinating man<\/li>\n<li>The author does a wonderful job of weaving together historical details, human details, quotes from endless interviews, and memorabilia to make a compelling book that&#8217;s difficult to put down.<\/li>\n<li>It highlights the Pacific theater of World War II&#8211;a fascinating but often-glossed-over side of WWII<\/li>\n<li>It is rich with thematic elements&#8211;sibling relationships, teamwork, mind over matter, human dignity, the ethics of war. (Not that the author tries to propagandize. She doesn&#8217;t opine on the topics, it&#8217;s just that the story raises questions ripe for reflection or book club discussion.)<\/li>\n<li>God &#8220;accidentally&#8221; shows up. This is not a religious work and the author doesn&#8217;t even appear that curious about religion, much less be a fan of spiritual things, but she can&#8217;t help but report what happened. And the truth is that the story of Louie Zamperini&#8217;s life isn&#8217;t complete without the God who saved him from his worst enemy yet.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I&#8217;ve done a terrible job of summing up this book&#8211;and a similarly terrible job of expressing why I loved it so much. <\/p>\n<p>But please, forgive the poor ramblings of a woman who can&#8217;t quite figure out how to put things into words&#8211;and pick up a copy of Laura Hillenbrand&#8217;s <i>Unbroken<\/i>. You will not be disappointed.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Rating:<\/b>5 Stars <br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b>History\/Biography<br \/>\n<b>Synopsis:<\/b>The overwhelmingly powerful, fantastically told story of Louis Zamperini&#8217;s life as an Olympian, an airman, a castaway, a POW, an alcoholic, and a redeemed man.<br \/>\n<b>Recommendation:<\/b> As Carrie put it: &#8220;So why, exactly, are you still sitting here?&#8221; Buy it, borrow it, steal it*; but READ it. <br clear=\"all\" \/><\/p>\n<p>*That&#8217;s an expression. Please don&#8217;t actually steal this book. Whoever you stole it from will never forgive you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we were looking for a book to read for the new bookclub a few friends were forming, I suggested Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. I had to look up the description of the book in order to suggest it, since I didn&#8217;t have any idea what the actual content of the book was. I just &#8230; <a title=\"Book Review: &#8220;Unbroken&#8221; by Laura Hillenbrand\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2013\/20130716-11774.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Book Review: &#8220;Unbroken&#8221; by Laura Hillenbrand<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[36],"tags":[49,1257,1259,1256,1258],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11774"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11784,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11774\/revisions\/11784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}