Unbroken

Unbroken

Last summer I asked my friends for a book recommendation on facebook and the majority of people who wrote back said that Unbroken was an amazing read. My wife had spent a large part of our vacation reading it so I was intrigued by its story and the bits and pieces she had relayed to me in her excitement. My friends and my wife once again came through in a great way – Unbroken really is an excellent book.

For those of you who haven’t heard the story yet or browsed the pages of it here is a basic synopsis.

Louis Zamperini is a rebellious kid growing up in southern California in the 30s. The son of Italian immigrants he is different, tough, and picked on a good bit. He’s also fast and extremely strong-willed. Meanwhile his older brother Pete is the golden boy of the high school. A good-looking, smooth-talking track star everyone knows him and loves and wonders why his kid brother is nothing like him. But Pete sees potential in his brother and begins to channel his strong will and natural speed into something that will change his life forever. Under Pete’s tutelage Louis becomes a track and field sensation in southern California and begins to break more records than noses.

His athletic prowess takes him places he could never have dreamed of as a child. He participated and performed well in the 1936 olympics. Eventually he set his sights on the Summer Olympics of 1940 with the realistic hopes of taking home the gold. This is where the story takes a turn and becomes even more unbelievable.

He joins the Army Air Corps shortly after Pearl Harbor and becomes a bomber. His strong will and fun-loving, devil-may-care attitude make for a great officer and friend in the Air Corps. After several missions, near-misses and heart pounding stories Louis’ military career seems almost legendary. That is until his plane goes down in the pacific and he and two other officers are set adrift on two small rafts with no food, no water and a sliver of hope for rescue.

From Olympic glory to a Japanese prison camp to the unlikely but amazing denouement Louis Zamperini’s story is that of a man who was unbroken. I found myself staying up later and later each night wondering what on earth could happen next to him that would be a better story than what had just happened. The author, Laura Hillenbrand, tells the story so naturally that the reader is mesmerized. Her voice is that of an articulate, aged member of the greatest generation sitting at a camp fire retelling the stories that defined them. In a time when our world is deeply divided on several issues and the men and women we’ve placed our hope in to be our heroes do nothing but disappoint us Unbroken tells the story of a unlikely, rebellious kid who becomes a hero simply because he refused to give in.

It is a thoroughly American story with a hero, a villain, a girl to rescue, a cause to fight for, narrow escapes, moral victories and a happy ending. Perhaps that’s why I liked it so much and why so many of my friends liked it. If you’re looking for a good summer read and haven’t read this yet, then go get it.